Man rescues baby sloth from drowning, four years later it's the perfect pet that crawled into their calm, unhurried family life

Somebody call Kristen Bell because this man is living her slow, sloth-filled dream.

When you go fishing, you might be excited to come home with a really big catch. But what this guy got instead was quite the opposite. Not only was it seriously small, but it wasn't even a fish at all! It turned out to be a baby sloth that was drowning. The man picked up the wet baby animal and swaddled it in towels. The sloth immediately clung to him like he was its mother.

Over the years, the sloth and the family grew closer, until the sloth eventually treated them like real parents. They learned to appreciate taking things slow and the sloth's odd, yet adorable, habits. Four years later, the sloth still clings to them like it did when it was rescued.

Although this is a very cute story, we don't know enough about the sloth's background to know if this "rescue" was ethical or not. This is a reminder that sloths, and all wild animals, are not pets. They belong out in nature, no matter how cute a pet they might make. Even if the sloth was injured or born with some sort of deformity, they should have contacted professionals to make sure the sloth got proper care and had the opportunity to be reintroduced to the wild.

Don't be the next Tiger King. If you find a wild animal in need of help, first call the authorities, and have them tell you what to do before taking any action of your own.

01

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
02

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
03

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
04

via hothead101166
05

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
We get the desire to keep the sloth as a pet. Who wouldn't want one? They're adorable, especially when they are babies. However, do you have any idea what the diet of a sloth is? What kind of environment it needs? How it matures? How to socialize it? Yeah, we didn't think so, and there's a good reason for that: because sloths aren't meant to be pets. They may not be dangerous, but they don't belong in human houses. We know how tempting it is to live a life full of sloth hugs, but think about it from the sloth's point of view, and you might think otherwise.
06

via alfandmaggiesmumma
07

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
08

via bonnie_lk
09

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
10

via j.stach
11

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
12

via sharon.paul_travels
13

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
Sloths mostly eat leaves, flowers, and tender shoots. But where do you even buy those things? It's not like pet stores have a “sloth section”. You'd have to go to a plant nursery, and even then, could any of those flowers be poisonous to sloths? Also, sloths eat very little because it takes them so long to digest things (their whole bodies are slow), so you run the risk of easily overfeeding them.
14

via banjolulu
15

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
16

via dianelbrewer1
17

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders
18

via tanikasales
19

via sloth_world_lover, dor.saunders