Sloths
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Famous Scientist
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe has dedicated her life to studying sloths. People who study sloths are still considered zoologists. She is a British zoologist and an expert on sloth biology and ecology. She is 35 and was born on May 15, 1990, in Preston, England. When she was 18, she got on a one-way flight to Costa Rica for a year-long research placement. That is where she met her first sloth. She witnessed many sloths coming in hurt and needing help. Many organizations were rescuing them, but none were trying to figure out the cause.
She moved permanently to the rainforest, where she spent 6 years tracking wild sloths and collecting data. Which laid the foundation for the longest-running study of sloth ecology. In 2017, she founded the Sloth Conservation Foundation, or SloCo, a non-profit dedicated to research-driven conservation. SloCo has become the world’s leading authority on sloth conservation. She was recognized internationally, including receiving the Future for Nature Award in 2022. In 2021, sloths were made the national symbol of Costa Rica due to Dr. Cliffe’s help. She has appeared on many major media outlets and has written two books. The first book is Life in the Slow Lane, and the second is a children's book, The Adventures of Dr. Sloth. Due to her, the study of sloths has changed forever. |
Career
Careers that work with sloths include Wildlife Rehabilitator, Zookeeper, Zoologist, and Conservation Biologist. Wildlife Rehabilitator(Re-hu-bil-la-tay-tor) salaries range from $40k-$50k a year, but can start lower. In Missouri, salaries can range from as high as $100k to as low as $20k. They would work at places like the Wildlife Rescue Center in Ballwin, Mo.
Wildlife Rehabilitators (Re-hu-bil-la-tay-tor) spend a lot of their time preparing food for the animals. They also spend most of their time cleaning laundry, dishes, and cages. They arrange the cages so that they are suitable for the animals' age and health. Rehabilitators research new species that enter the center. They also might have to forage for wild insects or plants for the animals. |
Concept & Application
Why is it important to study sloths? It is very important to study sloths for several reasons. First of all, we have to understand the animal to be able to save them. Second, the fungi and algae are being studied. Potentially, their algae can cure Malaria and even breast cancer. There have also been 2 dozen drug leads hidden in a sloth's fur.
Sloths have always been known to be slow, but why, you might wonder? After much studying, they have discovered that sloths lack the cone cells in their eyes. Without those cells, they are completely colorblind. They can’t run in trees if they can’t see. Their option was risk falling to their death or moving slowly.
Due to their bad eyesight, they can’t run away from predators, so they have a different strategy: camouflage. They have algae, fungi, insects, and moths all in their fur. So thanks to them, sloths can blend in with the trees. They keep moving at their normal pace, which is slow enough for predators not to spot them.
Without research, it is impossible to get an accurate estimation of the sloth population. Without knowing the population, it is hard to know if sloths are declining until it’s too late. There have been many ways found to keep track of their population. They use things like thermal drone technology, skilled human observers, and scat detection dogs.
They also keep daily dairy data loggers, and they have VHF collars. VHF or very high frequency collars are tracking devices. They go around the sloth's neck and are used to track their location as they move. The daily diary data loggers were created by Dr. Cliffe, the founder of SloCo. These are put inside a backpack for the sloths to wear, which is completely waterproof.
They put the VHF with it in the backpack, making it multi-purpose. So not only are these backpacks now multi-purpose, but they are also reusable. These backpacks are 3d printed and are built to be taken apart, to get the data, then put back together to be used again. So there is many important reasons to study sloths.
Sloths have always been known to be slow, but why, you might wonder? After much studying, they have discovered that sloths lack the cone cells in their eyes. Without those cells, they are completely colorblind. They can’t run in trees if they can’t see. Their option was risk falling to their death or moving slowly.
Due to their bad eyesight, they can’t run away from predators, so they have a different strategy: camouflage. They have algae, fungi, insects, and moths all in their fur. So thanks to them, sloths can blend in with the trees. They keep moving at their normal pace, which is slow enough for predators not to spot them.
Without research, it is impossible to get an accurate estimation of the sloth population. Without knowing the population, it is hard to know if sloths are declining until it’s too late. There have been many ways found to keep track of their population. They use things like thermal drone technology, skilled human observers, and scat detection dogs.
They also keep daily dairy data loggers, and they have VHF collars. VHF or very high frequency collars are tracking devices. They go around the sloth's neck and are used to track their location as they move. The daily diary data loggers were created by Dr. Cliffe, the founder of SloCo. These are put inside a backpack for the sloths to wear, which is completely waterproof.
They put the VHF with it in the backpack, making it multi-purpose. So not only are these backpacks now multi-purpose, but they are also reusable. These backpacks are 3d printed and are built to be taken apart, to get the data, then put back together to be used again. So there is many important reasons to study sloths.
