The sloth’s gentle features, wide “smiling” mouth (especially on the three-toed), docile nature and abundant fur gives it a friendly and cuddly appeal as a “pet”. But the sloth is a wild creature, and like all wildlife, should be allowed to live its life in peace without intervention by tourists and without being captured to serve as exotic ‘pets’.
Baby sloth videos exploded across You Tube a few years ago, and the incredible cuteness of these unusual furry babies brought new popularity to the sloth. On one hand, that’s been ideal in bringing awareness of the species and survival to the world stage. On the other, there was a marked increase in the practice of ‘wildlife selfies’, which we highlighted here.
Sadly, a particularly harmful type of tourism was also taking place, in which tourists were offered the chance to hold a young sloth for a photo opportunity. A sloth struggling slowly in a person’s arms while wearing a hair bow in its fur is cruel, not cute. If you ever get to travel through a sloth’s habitat, please don’t partake in this damaging activity. We want to see it stamped out.