One last sloth story

Some of you may have heard about this incident already, but I thought I´d share the entire story of the time I helped save a sloth´s life.

A week or so ago after we had finished feeding all the sloths for the afternoon, one of the new volunteers came running over to a group of us and the volunteer coordinator saying one of the sloths was choking on something. We rushed over and Claire, the volunteer coordinator, frantically opened the cage door and tried to get the choking sloth out of the back of its enclosure. I had to basically shove the other sloth in the cage out of the way to help out. Oh well.

Once Clair had picked up the sloth and was holding it we could see that it was choking on what seemed to be a little piece of string. They all have towels in their cages that they enjoy pulling over themselves to create a cover and shading from the light. So as Claire held the sloth I took the little bit of string on the sloth´s nose and began pulling. I eventually pulled out a piece of string almost a foot and a half long that for some reason it had been trying to swallow.

After I wasn´t sure who was more relieved, the sloth or Claire. She looked like she was about to have a heart attack. I guess the sloth was about to have a similar experience, but of course it did was all sloths do and went back to it´s platform, curled up in the corner, and went to sleep.