In Costa Rica, the owners of the Nayara Resorts hotel have made it their mission to save sloths from extinction, and this is being implemented by tourists. Money is secondary — the opportunity to cuddle with these animals is much more important!
Sloths have quite a lot of natural enemies, in addition to the harmful consequences of human activity, and they can protect themselves a little less than nothing. The animals are really at risk of extinction, so Nayara Resorts decided to make something like a reserve for them. The idea is to teach sloths to live next to a person, not to domesticate, but to create comfortable conditions for them. Then the jungle animals will come and stay here where it’s safe.
The main advantages of this resort near the Arenal volcano are the presence of huge thickets of cecropia — a distant relative of nettle, the main product in the diet of sloths. They are actually omnivores, but tourists are instructed not to feed them human food. And you can’t make noise, and animals don’t like harsh gestures. In contrast, they perfectly and endlessly pose for a photo, quite willingly go for pens and actually love to hug!
Many are surprised to learn that sloths swim perfectly — three times faster than they walk! And yes, you can swim with him, the hotel has ponds and waterfalls. And a sloth can hold its breath for 40 minutes, slowing down the work of the heart!
Moreover, they have a different structure of internal organs that do not hang out in the stomach, but are attached to the chest, which allows the sloth to hang for a long time in any position without discomfort. Visitors of the resort will learn a lot of new things and really fall in love with these animals!
