Throughout South America, baby sloths are poached from the wild to be sold to tourists as pets or to be used as photo props. There’s one man, in particular, who is thought to be a leader in the illegal sloth trade: Isaac Bedoya. According to National Geographic, he’s one of Latin America’s most notorious sloth […]
Tag: sloth
Over 200 Species From Amazon Rainforest Sold Illegally in Peru Markets
A recent undercover investigation by World Animal Protection revealed that over 200 species from the Amazon rainforest are being sold at a market in Peru. All kinds of animals, in varying degrees of neglect, were found there, including dolphins, sloths, manatees, jaguars, turtles, and primates. Many of the animals were being sold to be used […]
‘So enigmatic’: injured sloth inspires rescue centre in Venezuela
It is almost a year to the day that Haydée and Juan Carlos Rodríguez first spotted an injured sloth lying by the side of the road while they were out on a drive. In an attempt to cross from one tree to another in the Venezuelan town of San Antonio de Los Altos, near Caracas, […]
Why can’t we leave them alone? The troubling truth about selfies with sloths
Nobody seems to know quite how the sloth became the rock star of the animal kingdom. From high in the Latin American rainforest, the absurd mammal is the focus of a frenzied obsession that shows no sign of abating. Sloths are on bank notes, adverts, T-shirts, internet memes and Instagram fan pages. “People are obsessed,” […]
Petition: Sloth Yoga Exploits Animals for Profit!
Sloths are absolutely adorable, there’s no denying it. But it doesn’t mean they are pets or that we should disregard their wellbeing for the opportunity to come in contact with them. In recent years, it seems that sloths have been gaining popularity amongst people, which is actually not good for them. They already have their […]
Local knowledge sheds light on some of the world’s strangest mammals
One of the difficulties of studying rare and endangered species is that they are, by definition, hard to find. Scientists attempting to understand their distributions and the threats to their survival can spend hundreds of hours in the field while collecting little data, simply because sightings are so few and far between. To find out […]
Meeting the mammal that survived the dinosaurs
So, here I am, running in a forest at night over 2,000 miles from home. This forest—dry, stout, and thorny enough to draw blood—lies just a few miles north of a rural town in the western edge of the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti. I’m following—or trying to keep pace with—a local hunter […]
Attempt to export nearly-extinct pygmy sloths sets off international incident in Panama
Last Monday (9 September 2013), the police officer on morning duty at Isla Colón International Airport, Panama noticed some foreigners loading crates with what appeared to be animals on a private jet. Finding this suspicious, he alerted his supervisor. Within minutes the local police chief, the mayor of Bocas, the director of the regional office […]