Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle has doubled its sloth population, which is a sentence that only works because the previous number was one. Jessie, a female Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth, has joined Fezzik in the zoo’s Tropical Rain Forest, and the two are being introduced to each other at a pace that suits them.
Who Jessie is
Jessie is 26 years old, born September 10, 1999, at the Philadelphia Zoo, and she has had three offspring. Fezzik, the male who arrived last year, is 11. Both are Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths, Choloepus hoffmanni, named for the two long curved claws on each front foot.
The pair were matched under a breeding recommendation through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan and will share a habitat once introductions are complete.
“We’re thrilled to have a second sloth, Jessie, join Fezzik here at Woodland Park Zoo,” said Arden Robert, animal care manager at Woodland Park Zoo. “Jessie and Fezzik offer visitors a unique chance to observe the calm, fascinating behaviors that make sloths so beloved.”
Woodland Park Zoo has been through this kind of paired introduction before; the zoo is also where brown bear cubs Fern and Juniper grew up.
What to expect on a visit
Jessie and Fezzik are still being introduced, so in the short term only one sloth may be visible at a time. That is normal, and it is worth knowing before you go rather than after.
When you do find them, they are in the Tropical Rain Forest, sharing the space with the zoo’s golden lion tamarins, which gives that exhibit a nice contrast: one species that never stops moving and one that has built an entire evolutionary strategy around not moving much at all.
Sloths, briefly
Hoffmann’s two-toed sloths are nocturnal mammals native to Central and South America that spend most of their lives upside down in the forest canopy, resting, climbing and browsing on leaves, fruit and flowers. They are known for gentle dispositions and unhurried movement, which is precisely why watching one is more absorbing than it sounds. Give the habitat a few minutes rather than a glance; a sloth reaching slowly for a branch is one of the better small spectacles in a zoo.
