There is no creature more effortlessly memeable than the sloth. They are nature’s couch potatoes, our existential icons, and biological anomalies. They are TikTok-famous, stuffed-animal-cute, and somehow seem to be thriving in their niche despite moving at the speed of absolutely nothing.
Except, lately, they’re not.
The World’s Most Efficiently Inefficient Animal
Sloths are, functionally, the product of a tens-of-millions-of-years bet against metabolism. Their entire existence is built around doing less, using less, moving less. While humans are drinking Red Bull and operating on five hours of sleep, sloths have perfected the art of minimalism.
How minimal? Well, their body temperature fluctuates with the weather because generating heat is too much effort. Their digestive system is so slow that they metabolize food at a rate more appropriate for a houseplant. They’ve also evolved to blend in perfectly with the trees, so perfectly, in fact, that their fur grows algae (how fun!).
For millions of years, this strategy worked. Predators couldn’t see them, they didn’t burn unnecessary calories, and they didn’t need a rich diet to survive. Sloths were out here playing chess while the rest of the animal kingdom was trying to figure out where to meet up for the game.
But then we happened.
The Sloth vs. The Modern World
The modern world is (to put it bluntly) a logistical nightmare for sloths. Their main threats are things that never should have been problems to begin with: deforestation, roads, dogs, and the fact that power lines exist.
“In Costa Rica’s Talamanca province, where we are based, urban sprawl has increased by 30 percent in just the past two years, with an estimated 3,000 sloths lost annually,” reports the Sloth Conservation Foundation. That number is mind-bending. It means that in a single corner of the world, thousands of sloths are just… ceasing to exist every year because humans can’t stop bulldozing trees.
Here’s why that’s catastrophic: sloths don’t just prefer trees. They physically cannot exist without them. Unlike other arboreal creatures (think monkeys or squirrels), sloths don’t have a backup plan. Their skeletons are built for hanging, not standing. Their movements are so slow that being on the ground is, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, fatal.
Death by Everything Modern
Roads are bad. Dogs are worse. Sloths, famously defenseless, are not built to deal with enthusiastic territorial street dogs. And yet, as urbanization increases, sloth-dog interactions have skyrocketed.
To deal with this, conservationists started the Oh My Dog! campaign, which, despite sounding like a millennial dog-mom merch line, is actually an initiative to sterilize and track stray dogs. The goal? Fewer dog attacks = fewer sloth deaths. Simple, and effective.
But even if a sloth dodges deforestation and avoids dogs, it still has to contend with the most absurdly modern killer: electrocution. Sloths, bless them, cannot distinguish between tree branches and power lines. They go to climb, grab the wrong thing, and that’s it.
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe / Sloth Conservation FoundationThis is an issue that could be fixed tomorrow if utility companies prioritized insulating power lines. Instead, it’s being tackled slowly. The Sloth Conservation Foundation and others are working to install canopy bridges that allow sloths to move over roads and between fragmented forests safely. They’ve built 338 sloth crossings to date, but many more are needed.
The Climate is Doing Sloths No Favors
And then there’s the climate crisis, which might be the worst news of all. A 2024 PeerJ study found that sloths are terrible at dealing with temperature changes. Unlike most mammals, they don’t regulate their own body temperature well. And while lowland sloths can slow their metabolism to avoid overheating, highland sloths don’t have this adaptation. When temperatures rise, they burn more energy, putting them at risk of starvation.
It’s an absurdly specific evolutionary trap: sloths have spent millions of years perfecting the art of energy conservation, only to be placed in a situation where they suddenly need more energy to survive. And they don’t have it.
The Sloth Paradox: Loved, But Not Protected
You’d think all of this—deforestation, dog attacks, power line electrocutions, climate stress—would have resulted in a massive, worldwide conservation effort. Sloths are beloved. They have plush toys, fan accounts, and documentaries. They have, seemingly, influence.
And yet, sloth conservation remains underfunded and relatively niche. The organizations doing the work are running on donations and small grants. Meanwhile, illegal wildlife tourism (sloth selfies, sloth petting) is still a major issue, despite repeated warnings that handling sloths stresses them out to an extreme degree.
Dr. Cliffe put it plainly: “Sloths don’t like to be touched. They might not show it outwardly, but that’s because they’re a prey species.” Studies suggest handling sloths causes irregular heart rate and blood pressure.
The good news is that conservation efforts are making a difference. Sloth crossings are genuinely helping. Tree-planting initiatives are making an impact, alongside education campaigns. But the clock is ticking.
Sloths don’t need more memes. They don’t need another viral video. They need uninterrupted forests, insulated power lines, and, frankly, fewer dogs. Because as much as they’ve mastered the art of survival, their world is changing too fast for them to keep up.
And they deserve better than becoming another symbol of what we’ve lost.
Want to Help?
Consider donating to organizations working to protect sloths:
- The Sloth Conservation Foundation - Support their work in building sloth crossings, conducting research, and implementing conservation programs
- The Sloth Sanctuary of Costa Rica - Help fund their rescue and rehabilitation efforts for injured and orphaned sloths