Dozens of sloths plucked from the wild in Guyana and Peru died after they were shipped to Florida for a yet-to-open Orlando attraction. A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report says 31 sloths destined for "Sloth World Orlando" died after being housed in an unheated warehouse that, at one point, had no water or electricity. The facility was operated by Sanctuary World Imports, whose licensee, Peter Bandre, told investigators he'd ordered 21 sloths from Guyana and 10 from Peru in late 2024 and early 2025, WESH reports.
Bandre said the Guyana shipment arrived during a cold snap in December 2024, with the animals left in a warehouse he admits was not prepared to receive them. He said his business partner had told him the building was ready. Bandre blamed a "cold stun," for the deaths, explaining that hastily added space heaters were running off an extension cord from another building, which tripped a fuse. "It appears that at least for one night, the sloths were in the cold building without heat. There was no one present overnight to correct this," according to the FWC report, which was issued after an unannounced routine inspection of the warehouse. Temperatures that night dipped to 46 degrees, per the report.
- Months after the Guyana sloths died, 10 sloths from Peru arrived; two were dead on arrival and the eight others, described as severely underweight and in "very poor" condition, later died.
- Inside Climate News, which obtained the incident report through an open-records request, reports that dozens more sloths later arrived at the warehouse, but it's not clear how many of them survived. Necropsy reports and internal emails say multiple sloths died from viruses spreading through the facility, including a "novel two-toed sloth gammaherpesvirus."
- Sloth conservation groups have strongly criticized Sloth World's plans for an attraction with up to 65 sloths. "Sloths are wild mammals with complex ecological needs and no history of domestication," the Sloth Conservation Foundation said in a statement earlier this year. "Extracting sloths from the wild for entertainment facilities can contribute to demand for capture and export ... and provides no direct conservation benefit to wild populations."
- The opening of Sloth World, which claims it will be a "Slotharium" where sloths "live their slowest, happiest lives," has been repeatedly pushed back. Attractions Magazine reports that after Inside Climate News' report on the sloth deaths, Sloth World shut down its social media presence and the PR firm previously associated with the attraction apparently pulled out.
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