Science Today: Pygmy Sloths | California Academy of Sciences

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The 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.

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 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.

The population of pygmy
sloths is actually unknown

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

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.

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

on 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 also are in the forest.

This is important because previously
scientists thought

that you only find pygmy sloths
in the mangroves.

Which means that if there's only 5%
of the island with 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.

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