Sloth Encounter Experiences
Are you thinking about booking a sloth encounter experience at a zoo or rescue center? Before you book, follow our simple guide below to make sure you don’t get tricked into supporting an organization that causes harm to the sloths in its care.
Sloth yoga, sloth sleepover events, and sloth swimming the latest in a string of ‘encounter experiences’ which allow paying guests to hold, pet, and take selfie photographs with sloths.
Why are we highlighting this?
Surely there are bigger issues for us to worry about? The reality is that most people simply do not know the dark side of these seemingly harmless sloth encounters.
There is a direct connection between the poaching of wild sloths (which is escalating at an alarming rate), and how people are being allowed to interact with sloths at captive facilities worldwide.
The majority of people don’t realize this link, and if they did, they certainly wouldn’t support it – and that is why we are writing this blog. We want to raise awareness and to help people make better informed and ethical decisions in the future.
We aren’t saying that ALL sloth encounters are bad – far from it. We simply want to highlight the main problems and give you an idea of what to look out for when booking one of these experiences.
The big problem
Most organizations hosting hands-on encounters typically say that the sloth was rescued, they are educating people or they give money to support sloth conservation. Let’s take a closer look at those claims for a second and get to the root of the problem.
“The sloth was rescued…”
You can still entertain and educate guests while raising funds without putting sloths in unnatural situations that cause stress.
While we care deeply about animal welfare and know that these types of interactions are stressful for sloths (with scientific evidence proving that all sloths experience abnormal blood pressure reactions in response to human contact due to internalized stress) there is an even bigger concern. There are dangerous knock-on consequences for sloths in the wild.
“Supporting sloth conservation…”
The bottom line is that hands-on encounters like this ‘normalize’ human-wildlife contact. Social media is flooded with photos of people directly interacting with wild animals.
If someone is offered the opportunity to hold a sloth then they think “well I have seen other people doing it on Instagram so it must be OK”. It isn’t OK and here is why:
Hundreds of thousands of people are now coming to countries like Costa Rica and wanting to touch or hold a sloth after seeing other people doing it on social media.
To feed the demand for hands-on sloth encounters, baby sloths are being taken away from their mothers in the wild and are exploited as tourist attractions until they die – and then they are replaced.
Sloths are now the number 1 victims of the global “wildlife selfie trade” and human exploitation is quickly becoming one of the major threats to the survival of wild sloths. If reputable organizations are allowing people to have hands-on contact with the sloths in their care, then people won’t ever realize it is wrong.
The only way to stop this from happening to sloths in countries like Costa Rica is to kill the demand at the source. And that requires organizations that allow these types of events to take responsibility for the fact that they are setting a dangerous precedent for what is an acceptable interaction with a sloth.
Every single day we are witnessing first-hand the devastating impact of the demand for hands-on wildlife encounters. Just last week a sloth was being held at a banana plantation and tourists were being charged $10 to hold it. The men holding the sloth had connections with local taxi drivers who were waiting at the Limon port as a cruise ship arrived.
Hundreds of people getting off the cruise ship were wanting to see a sloth, and the taxi drivers knew exactly where to take them. That sloth was never rescued. It is either still being held today, or has died from the trauma.
Are any sloth encounter experiences OK?
Yes! Plenty of accredited zoos and aquariums have very ethical sloth encounter experiences available. Here are the top 5 things to look out for:
- Do they allow hands-on contact with the sloth? If so, don’t do it. Sloths do not want to be touched or petted under any circumstance.
- Is the sloth moved from its enclosure? Sloths are creatures of habit and do not like big changes in the environment. For some species, being moved or taken on a walk outside may be enriching, but sloths get stressed out by this.
- Is the interaction on the sloth’s terms? If you are holding food out and the sloth comes to take it from you, this is OK and the interaction is on the sloth’s terms. But if a keeper is having to physically move or disturb the sloth then this becomes stressful.
- Does the organization donate to support sloth conservation efforts in the wild? Don’t be afraid to ask questions about this one. Many organizations claim to support conservation efforts but aren’t doing anything at all. Find out which non-profit they support and check the website of the non-profit to see if the organization is listed as an official supporter.
- How many encounter experiences does the sloth participate in each day? We wouldn’t recommend anything above 1 encounter per day. Many good organizations will even reschedule an encounter if the keeper doesn’t think the sloth is feeling up for it.
What can we do to stop the exploitation?
It is easy to feel powerless, but every single one of us has an important role to play. Educate as many people as you can about these issues, and make sure that you properly research any sloth encounter before participating in it. If we all shout loud enough, we can instigate change.
If you know of an organization using sloths in this way, do not be afraid to reach out to them directly to express your concerns!
