A startup known as “Sloth World” brought some 69 sloths to Orlando, Florida, with plans to charge $49 to let visitors see them up close. However, dozens of sloths died in conditions a former employee described to Mongabay as “heartbreaking,” ultimately forcing Sloth World to shut down, with plans to file for bankruptcy. Described as a slotharium, the venture was framed as a rescue mission to save sloths from deforested areas in Peru and Guyana. However, according to Rebecca Cliffe, founder and director of the Costa Rica-based nonprofit Sloth Conservation Foundation, that premise amounts to greenwashing, as more than 80% of Guyana is covered in rainforest. “There is no lack of habitat available for these sloths,” Cliffe told Mongabay in a video call. “There’s no way taking healthy adult breeding sloths out of an ecosystem, to go into a for-profit exhibit in the United States… [is] in the sloth’s best interest,” Cliffe said. In their natural habitat, sloths mainly eat native tree leaves and live alone. At Sloth World, the animals were kept in small cages stacked on top of each other and fed vegetables. “They would feed kale, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash and Mazuri biscuits, an exotic animal feed,” a former caretaker who briefly worked at Sloth World told Mongabay. The caretaker asked not to be named for fear of retribution. In their two weeks working with Sloth World, the caretaker said they saw a lot of sick animals, that they were told had intestinal problems. Normally, sloths defecate just…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via This RSS Feed.