![]() ( Why it's a myth that slow-moving sloths are stupid.) ![]() “I applaud what the Jaguar Rescue Center did, because the babies have a much better chance of surviving with their mother,” Pool said by email. This female, which would not have felt comfortable on the ground, likely used her keen sense of smell to confirm the baby’s identity, and then hid her face to minimize contact with humans, says sloth expert Monique Pool, director of Green Heritage Fund Suriname. Mother brown-throated three-toed sloths generally have one baby at a time, which they care for until they're six months old. The two then shared a nuzzling embrace that brought the rescuers to tears, Garcia says. He lifted the animal up to the waiting sloth, which immediately accepted the baby. “The volunteers were very excited and said, ‘We got one that’s climbing down, and looking around like crazy,'" says Garcia, who wrapped the baby in a towel and raced to the scene with veterinarian Fernando Alegre. Knowing that sloth moms recognize their babies' cries, the center's founder and resident biologist Encar Garcia recorded the orphan’s vocalizations on her smartphone, transferred the files to a portable speaker, and sent a team back into the wild the next day.Īround 5 p.m., the volunteers noticed a curious adult sloth descending a tree. ( See unbelievably cute pictures of rescued baby sloths.)Ī visual search for the mother proved fruitless. But the youngster would not have survived the night alone on the beach. A vet check revealed the brown-throated three-toed sloth, the weight of a can of soup, was in a few weeks old and in good condition. Tourists had found the baby lying on the beach the day before, covered in sand and ants, and brought it to the center. Volunteers from the nonprofit Jaguar Rescue Center had hiked Playa Cocles for hours, broadcasting the sounds in hopes of enticing the infant’s mother to reclaim her little one. Two-toed sloths are not considered endangered, but the Cincinnati Zoo said they are becoming increasingly vulnerable as a result of human encroachment.On a Costa Rican beach where the jungle meets the sea, the recorded cries of a lost baby sloth recently blasted from a loudspeaker. The 28-year-old has been in Cincinnati since 2006. Moe, on the other claw, was orphaned in the wild when he was young, and was brought into human care for his own survival. Because sloths don't do anything speedily, the pair took their relationship slow and didn't warm up to each other until 2020. Lightning, who is now 10-years-old, arrived at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2019 on a breeding recommendation and was introduced to Moe that December. When the baby is born, she'll do most of the work, carting her pint-sized progeny with her for 10 to 12 months following the birth. Lightning will be kept behind-the-scenes during the pregnancy, but her plodding paramour can be visited in Discovery Forest during normal zoo hours. Lightning has been undergoing regular ultrasounds recently, the zoo said, and the presence of a fetus and fetal heartbeat were discovered during an exam in early September.Īn ultrasound that was performed earlier this week revealed "significant growth and fetal movement," according to the press release. "They showed immediate interest in each other and did what we were hoping they would do." "We waited several months before putting the sloth pair back together after Lightning delivered a stillborn baby last October," said Julie Grove, Cincinnati Zoo's zoological manager, in a press release. The pair were introduced to one another in 2019 and the zoo announced Lightning was pregnant in February 2021 unfortunately, she delivered a stillborn baby eight months later.Īfter the miscarriage, zoo staff gave Lightning and Moe a break from one another. Zoo workers have hoped for a baby sloth since 2016, but Lightning and her partner Moe were more interested in a slow-burn romance in the beginning. Her new pup is expected to join the family in the early summer of 2023. CINCINNATI - Lightning the sloth is slow-cooking a new addition to the Cincinnati Zoo, the zoo announced on Thursday.
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