Sloth Sanctuary Suriname sequel: the whole story!

With a heavy heart, I have to inform you of the passing of a dear friend only a few weeks ago. Her name was 19November. A sloth I learned to love and who communicated with us until her end.

You may remember the many reports we spent on her. She was famous beyond our borders. Remember when our volunteers while visiting Costa Rica wrote: “to see in the San Jose tourist market ‘our own’ long term rehabilitation Bradypus tridactylus sloth going by the illustrious name of ‘19November’ on a tourist license plate as if she were a local Bradypus variegatus from Costa Rica. But hey, we know better!”

And then the CNN Heroes nomination announcement was made with a picture of 19November. And then on the 1st of August 2017, we moved to the center and 19November moved from the balcony into the forest. We wrote a report about her first baby at the center. She was a clear rehabilitation success. Thriving and reproducing. Every year she brought us a new baby. What made these babies so special was that 19November communicated with us and came to show her babies. We told you about when her baby fell from the tree at night. And our super-caretaker Yvonne heard the baby wail and retrieved it from the forest floor. She brought the baby in and kept it warm. And 19November came to get her baby the next morning when Yvonne brought it to her. We reported on how she trusted us to take care of her baby when he was experiencing an eye infection at the beginning of January. But she came also down to see if we were going to let it go after the three-day treatment. And in June she again brought us a baby. The third one. We saw June grow up and at the end of December mother and child had parted ways. At the beginning of January, I saw a sloth sitting high up in a tree. And I knew that if it was 19November she would respond to my whistle. And she did. I whistled several times. Was it a sign that she waved at me? We will never know.

Two weeks after that day, Yvonne called me early in the morning. As she went to feed the two-fingered sloths, she found a dead sloth on the ground. As we wanted to know why she had died at the age of 9, we performed a necropsy. We did not find any reason for an early passing. We learned from the necropsy that she had again conceived. Had she been bitten by a poisonous snake? By a scorpion while she came down to the forest floor to defecate? We will never know. But even as she was dying, she wanted us to know that she was leaving us, by moving to a place where we for sure would find her.

Going to her home will not be the same, I will always expect to see her in the trees. We hope her babies will continue to grace us with their presence because their mother was very special to all of us.

We thank you for your continued support and leave you with some warm sloth hugs, something I definitely need right now.