Meet My New Boyfriend, Laylo

This past year when I visited the Peruvian Amazon, I shared a long-hidden passion of mine… I love sloths! For some reason, these slow-moving, clumsy-looking, furry creatures have always captured my imagination. It started when I saw an Animal Planet special on sloths & watched their mating process. When the female is ready, she begins howling loudly. Males jump into action- or as jumpy as a sloth can get. Watching the males ever-so-slowly move through the forest to the waiting female cracked me up. It looked as if they would arrive a week too late to do the job at hand!

I came back from my adventure and was sadly forced to report- no sloth sightings. This was remedied today when I visited the sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica. Take a look at my new boyfriend, Laylo. He was initially a “Layla” until they confirmed “she” was a “he.”

These creatures are absolutely adorable. Living up to 30 years, they come in 2-toed and 3-toed varieties. The 2-toed are omnivores while their 3-toed cousins dine on leaves and vegetables. They hang upside down most of the day and sleep for up to 18 hours at a time. They aren’t lazy- just blessed with an extremely slow metabolism. Their faces charm you with a constant smile.

The sanctuary began when the owners took in an injured sloth years ago. Buttercup was injured, was nursed back to health and now is grand dame of the sanctuary. Word spread and local began bringing other injured or neglected sloths in to join the family. The sanctuary is now home to over 120 adults and 20 baby sloths requiring constant feeding and rehabilitation- with the goal or reintroducing these gentle creatures back to their habitat. It costs them close to $11,000 a month for feed and upkeep of their sloths.

Unfortunately, deforestation, roads and pesticides have made the rainforest a dangerous place for these slow-moving cuties. Imagine trying to cross roads when a turtle can leave you in the dust. Chemicals have left many of their favorite leaves toxic to the sloths. Humans, who take babies from their mothers, to use as pets or tourist attractions, account for a number of their residents. Falls from their treetop hideaways can leave them badly injured or vulnerable to predators such as jaguars. A careful diet of goat’s milk and almond tree leaves revives weak babies. It takes 30 days for food to pass through a sloth’s intestinal tract so medicines and proper diet take a long time to do their magic. Big plastic bins (like you’d use to store holiday decorations) serve as homes to the babies.

Their habits are interesting… they leave their trees only once a week for the tiresome journey to the ground to go to the bathroom. Once done… they even dig and cover their waste. This may be an effort to cover their scent and keep predators off their trail. I’d like to think they are just thoughtful and clean. I bet Laylo would even put the seat down!

To find out more, visit www.slothrescue.org.