14 DAY TRIAL // A months-old female Hoffman's two-toed sloth living at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in New York might just be the country's luckiest. This is because, according to its caretakers, it is the first animal of its kind to have even been successfully hand-raised at a wildlife sanctuary in the United States.
Zoo Borns tells us that the sloth, named Araña, was born some time ago, on August 1. At that time, keepers believed that, just like all the other baby sloths born at this facility over the years, it would have no trouble sharing an enclosure with others of its kind.
However, they were soon proven wrong, and found that they had no choice except look after the baby sloth themselves, the same source details.
Despite being hand-raised, the cute-looking rascal is thriving. Thus, it is healthy and as active as the average sloth would ever dream to be.
“It is extremely rare for Sloths to be hand-reared, especially from such a very early age. The dynamic of our Sloth group led us to make the decision to hand-raise her, and we could not be more pleased with the remarkable success we have had,” explains Zoo Director Ted Fox.
Although they are currently not considered to be in danger of going extinct, sloths are losing their natural habitat to logging and other similar activities.