Benedict Cumberbatch has been compared to one, Hollywood actress Kristen Bell burst into tears when she met one on her birthday and one of these furry critters by the name of Sid stole the show from animated co-stars in the hit children’s film Ice Age.
Of course, it’s sloths.
But for those of you who know little about these cute creatures meet 23-year-old British zoologist and sloth scientist Becky Cliffe.
Fresh from graduating in 2012 the University of Manchester graduate decided to bid farewell to Manchester’s rain-sodden streets and travel to the Costa Rican rainforest to protect and rehabilitate mammals at the Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica.
It was during her previous 12-month university placement at the sloth sanctuary, under the guidance of owner Judy Avey-Arroyo, that nurtured her interest in these cuddly critters.
“I first went there around three-and-a-half years ago. I didn’t really know what I was going into. I really liked sloths and was interested in finding out more about them,” Becky told MM.
“It was only when I actually got there and I met Judy that I really started to understand the massive problems the sanctuary has and the sloths are facing.
“They’re in trouble because their habitat is being destroyed and they’re all ending up at the sanctuary, because they’ve been hit by cars and other accidents.”
STRIKE A POSE! Becky cuddling up to one of the santuary’s many patients
Since Becky returned to the Sloth Sanctuary as an on-site researcher she embarked upon the ‘Sloth Backpack Project’, which forms the basis of her Swansea University PhD.
The project involves tagging and monitoring the daily activity of wild sloths using a small device designed by Professor Rory Wilson called the ‘Daily Diary’, which was originally used to monitor penguins.
With no financial backing for the project Becky turned to online crowd-funding website indiegogo.com in a bid to raise the money she needed.
She explained: “We aimed to raise $80,000, thinking, ‘we’re not really going to get that, we’ll probably get around $20,000, but at least that will fund some of our work’, but we actually made $93,000 dollars.
HANGING OUT: Sloth wearing his tagging device (© Suzi Eszterhas)
“I was really, really happy, that money funded all of our equipment, field costs, and everything for the next three years.”
Given the nature of Becky’s work she inevitably has to take the good with the bad, and unfortunately there is quite a lot of bad involved.
Many of the baby sloths that make their way to the sanctuary suffer from limb deformities which can affect their quality of life.
One baby, named Koki, was brought into the sanctuary suffering from a variety of ailments.
Becky explained: “He was about the third or the fourth one that was brought in that has had deformities. When we got him in we were like ‘oh God, look at his arms, he’s got one finger on each little arm’, and his feet were kind of off.
“The joints in his feet don’t really work so he can’t grip onto anything and he’s got no ears so he’s deaf.
HAPPY CHAPPY: This sloth snuggles in for a cuddle
“He can’t do very much which is quite sad. He can’t climb around and he’s not growing that much. He’s still very small but he’s doing really well.
Sadly most sloths who suffer with these kinds of deformities don’t live past several weeks as they tend to also have internal problems.
A US doctor who has worked with deformed sloths at the sanctuary believes the ailments are similar to a syndrome that causes birth defects among human babies.
While the exact reason for the deformities is still un-confirmed Becky and Judy have some theories as to what might be causing them.
“There are miles and miles of banana plantations everywhere and pineapple and watermelon and they just cover rainforest in pesticides, and they’re really, really bad pesticides,” she told MM.
CHILLIN’ OUT: One sloth takes a breather on a wicker chair
“They’re banned all over the world except for this coast, they’re known to cause birth defects in humans, and lots of the plantation workers also have defects.
“It must be affecting the wildlife around there, and this sloth (Koki) came from around a banana plantation.”
While Koki is quietly content living in the plantation, Becky has sadly seen other sloths with illnesses who haven’t managed to pull through.
She said: “There was one sloth called Booboo who really funny looking. He had no arms, no legs and no eyes – he looked a bit like a sausage.
“He did really well for ages, he was really sweet and really happy, but he had internal deformities and he didn’t make it.”
“It never gets any easier, but you kind of get used to it, you win some and you lose some you just have to keep on going because there are so many more sloths that need our help.”
Becky said she has no plans to stop her research anytime soon, and may even feature in the unannounced second season of the Discovery Channel’s fly-on-the-wall documentary, ‘Meet the Sloths’, which was filmed at the sanctuary.
Inevitably any research centred on the most slothenly creatures on the planet is going to take some time, but it seems that Becky is in it for the slow, long haul.
For more information about Becky’s work, and to keep track of the sloths’ progress, click here.
Pictures courtesy of Becky Cliffe & Suzi Eszterhas, with thanks
For more on this story and many others, follow Mancunian Matters on Twitter and Facebook.
