Orphaned Baby Sloths Nursed Back To Health At Snuggly Sanctuary
Stop everything, because these are the cutest little sloths in the world.
The Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica takes in orphaned baby sloths and nurses them - which means they have a sloth nursery!
The goal is that the sloths can hopefully be released back into the wild.
Here's baby Issy leaving her incubator for a weigh-in to make sure she's eating enough.
This happy gal is 10-month-old Lupita, who was orphaned when her mother was hit by a car.
Caring for infant sloths requires a lot of hard work and dedication.
"They need to be syringe fed goats milk every 4 hours during the day and begin eating leaves from as early as 1 week old!" the sanctuary posted on Facebook. "We are currently caring for 19 orphaned babies that are under 6 months old!"
The Sloth Sanctuary, founded by Costa Rican native Luis Arroyo and his wife, Judy Avey-Arroyo, has rescued more than 500 sloths since 1991. Their very first rescue, Buttercup, now 21 years old, is a permanent resident.
The sanctuary takes in so many orphaned and injured sloths that in November they expanded the juvenile nursery, adding a new jungle gym to help the sloths learn important climbing and balancing skills.
The Sloth Sanctuary also cares for injured adult sloths and tracks the surrounding sloth population, gathering data on the threats posed to sloths in the wild. Most of the dangers come from encroaching human activity, like increasing deforestation that leads to isolated and inbred sloth communities.
Working at the sanctuary may be hard work, but there are lots of sweet sloth faces to make it all worthwhile!