Science Today: Pygmy Sloths | California Academy of Sciences

Pygmy Sloths
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Pygmy sloths are this
really incredible species.

They're only found on a single
island in the whole world.

It's an island called Escudo de Veraguas

and that's off the coast of Panama.

Now what makes them really special
is that they're really small,

hence the name pygmy, and they're
about 40% the size of a typical sloth.

So if you think of a normal sloth being
the size of, like, a dog or something,

these guys are tiny.

Pygmy sloths are classified
as critically endangered.

And that's because they're isolated
to just this one single island.

And the population of pygmy sloths
is actually unknown

because it's actually really
hard to find them in the forest.

I mean they're camouflaged
and they're really good at hiding.

So we're not really sure
how many of them exist

but we think there's probably
no more than a few hundred.

So what I'm trying to do is study them
in the forest and see just how many

there are so we can understand if the
population is increasing or decreasing

because unfortunately there is a lot
of deforestation going on in the island.

One of the biggest discoveries that
I've made so far is by radio-collaring

pygmy sloths, I found that
they're not only in the mangroves

as originally thought but
they actually are in the forest.

Now this is important because previously
scientists thought that you only find

pygmy sloths in the mangroves
which means that if there's only five,

or something, island mangroves,
that's a tiny percentage of the island

that's habitable land for them.

So now I'm finding them in the forest
which means that instead of maybe

100 pygmy sloths, there could be up to
maybe 1,000 of them which is good news

for the population of pygmy sloths.

The most challenging part of this
whole operation is actually finding

and catching a sloth.

In order to catch it, I have to climb up
the tree and get it.

I shoot a rope up in the tree, I climb
the rope and then I just kind of reach out

and slowly grab the sloth and then
bring it down to the ground.

But it's actually really tricky
because a sloth can move

about as fast as you can walk,
which doesn't seem like much,

but when it's 110 feet up in the trees,
by the time I climb up there,

the sloth has seen me
and might be two trees over

and that requires me to go down,
to reposition my ropes

and to do that whole thing over again.

So actually, I get outrun and
out-smarted by sloths all the time.

One interesting thing that I found
by looking at them and researching them

is that actually, they seem to have
a lot of babies which is a good sign.

So I feel like this is a very healthy
and robust population

but it still has definite major challenges
and is facing threats from people

cutting down trees and also
burning parts of the island.

So it's important to keep an eye on it
but I think overall this is a pretty good

sign for the population.