To describe sloths as endearing does not do them justice. They are enchanting, bizarre and adorable creatures that are nearly impossible not to fall in love with. My first experience working with them was for a story about sloth orphans at a rescue facility in Costa Rica. I expected it to be a quick shoot, but two twists of fate would leave me so obsessed with sloths that I would spend many months over the next few years photographing them throughout Costa Rica, Panama and Brazil.
Orphaned Hoffman’s two-fingered sloths, Sloth Sanctuary, Costa Rica. © Suzi Eszterhas.
The Sloth Backpack Project uses the latest in animal-tracking technology to record, for the first time, exactly what wild sloths are doing and where they are doing it. The made-to-measure backpacks contain small data loggers called “Daily Diaries” that record behavioral data up to 40 times per second. Photo © Suzi Ezsterhas.
First, I met a very quirky, and hilarious sloth scientist, Rebecca Cliffe (now Dr. Cliffe) that was working on her PhD at the facility and regaled me with fascinating information about the life of these mysterious animals. Her passion for sloths is contagious. Second, during my time there a wild mother with her tiny, two-week-old baby appeared in the jungle around the facility. Normally very shy, sloth mothers are notoriously difficult to photograph in the wild. Rebecca and I spent two weeks following this mother throughout the forest. Some days we spent hours lying on the forest floor, staring up at a small patch of the mother’s fur, barely visible, hundreds of feet up in a tree. But other days she came down low to feed, and even crawled across the forest floor in front of us, with her tiny baby clinging to her chest. I was hooked.
Rebecca and I hatched a plan to photograph sloths throughout Central and South America. Sloths: Life in the Slow Lane is the result of our adventures with four species, in three different countries, and many, many hours of crashing through the jungle. After our time in Costa Rica, we ventured to the isolated and uninhabited island of Isla Escudo de Veraguas in Panama to document the little-known spectacle of swimming pygmy sloths. Here we endured jellyfish stings, being caught in a tropical storm at sea and a real-life stranding on a desert island. Our most challenging species to photograph, however, was the elusive maned sloths of Brazil. Driven almost to extinction by poaching and habitat loss, these shy and mysterious animals rarely emerge from the dense forest canopy. After spending 84 relentless hours searching in the jungle, we eventually had just 1 hour photographing a single sloth.
Hoffmann’s Sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni). Photo © Suzi Estherhas.
Rebecca Cliffe measuring the arm of adult male brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus), Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary, Costa Rica. Photo © Suzi Eszterhas.
Sloths: Life in the Slow Lane takes readers on a stunning visual journey into the rainforest canopies of South and Central America where they literally come face to face with the world’s slowest and most misunderstood mammals.
The 140 page book is written by Dr. Rebecca Cliffe, one of the world’s authorities on sloths and Founder and Executive Director of the Sloth Conservation Foundation. The book is illustrated by rare and striking photographs of sloths in the wild taken by renowned wildlife photographer, Suzi Eszterhas. Together, Suzi and Rebecca spent months on end in the mosquito-ridden rainforests of Costa Rica where they slowly gained the trust of a female sloth with a newborn baby. They then ventured to the isolated and uninhabited island of Isla Escudo de Veraguas in Panama to document the little-known spectacle of swimming pygmy sloths. Here they endured jellyfish stings, being caught in a tropical storm at sea and a real-life stranding on a desert island. Perhaps the most challenging species to photograph, however, was the elusive maned sloths of Brazil. Driven almost to extinction by poaching and habitat loss, these shy and mysterious animals rarely emerge from the dense forest canopy. After spending 84 relentless hours searching in the jungle, they eventually had just 1 hour photographing a sloth.
Dr. Rebecca Cliffe’s scientific work has been featured in a range of distinguished journals, as well as media outlets including the BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, The Independent, and Scientific American. Dr. Cliffe began her study of sloths in 2010, moving to Costa Rica where, by living with and observing sloths in their natural habitat, Rebecca has gained an unparalleled knowledge of the little-known habits of these mysterious mammals. While living in the Costa Rican rainforest for many years, she spearheaded the longest recorded study into wild sloth ecology for her PhD and has since expanded her work to encompass many different aspects of sloth biology, physiology, and conservation genetics.
Suzi Eszterhas is an award-winning wildlife photographer best known for her work documenting newborn animals and family life in the wild. Suzi’s photographs have been published in over 100 magazine cover and feature stories in publications such as TIME, Smithsonian, BBC Wildlife, EO, Popular Photography, Ranger Rick, and National Geographic Kids. As an author, Suzi has 15 books in print with another four in progress. Her patience, dedication and long hours in the field have yielded some of the most intimate imagery of sloths ever captured.
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BEJournal understands that stories are a gateway to peoples hearts and minds and we want to empower our readers to use this inspiration to make a difference. Please take a moment to visit Suzi Eszterhas and learn about her primary charity partner the Sloth Conservation Foundation, subscribe for updates and share their work. Best of all: A large portion of all proceeds from the sale of Sloths: Life in the Slow Lane by Rebecca Cliffe, Photographs by Suzie Eszterhas (Published by the Sloth Conservation Foundation, 2018) go towards supporting the work of the Sloth Conservation Foundation.
