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Monique Pool has officially coined the term “slothified!”
Her story began in 2005, when Pool lost her mongrel and contacted Suriname Animal Protection Society in the country’s capital city of Paramaribo. The organization told her they did not see any dog and suggested that she adopt a baby sloth instead. Fast forward to many years later, Pool has as many as 200 sloths in her home.
See video at the end
Monique Pool
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Pool has completely converted her home to a sloth sanctuary. Most of them had come from a 17-acre plot of land that was being developed to a cattle ranch. All in all, the team were overwhelmed to find 200 two-toed and three-toed sloths in the area along with a couple of anteaters and porcupines.
Suriname, which is located in South America, is a country neighboring Brazil and Guyana. The area has been known to be home for an abundant number of wildlife because of its climate, so it was no surprise for Pool and her team to find so many.
Pool’s organization, the Green Heritage Fund Suriname, has a number of volunteers that tend to the needs of these sloths until they are healthy enough to be released to their natural habitat.
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Pool’s job required her to work round the clock. She weighs the baby sloths to check for progress and bottle-feeds them while gathering cecropia tree leaves to feed the adults. Even if sloths are easier and safer to take care of than monkeys or chimpanzees, that doesn’t make the task exactly hassle-free as sloths aren’t used to be kept in captivity and would often fight with each other since they are solitary animals.
“I have become slothified,” she told Conservation International, a partner organization of the Green Heritage Fund Suriname. “Overwhelmed by sloth.”
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