How to Train a Sloth

Training a sloth takes patience.

For nearly two hours, Rick Hester, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo animal keeper, stood on a ladder waiting for Chalupa, a 13-year-old Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth, to wake up from a nap and continue a training session with him. He could have gently woke her up, but it was important to him to make the training session her choice.

Hester is using positive reinforcement to train Chalupa to travel on ropes that lead out of her enclosure and around ropes secured overhead in Monkey Pavilion.

“Positive reinforcement training is about giving animals the choice to do what they want and giving them all the power,” Hester said. “If I would have woken her up, it may have been negative for her, and that is the last thing you want when training an animal. If it’s negative, they won’t want to have a session with you.”

Hester said he knows in future training sessions he might end up waiting for Chalupa for three hours, four hours or even longer. Sloths are at rest for 20 to 22 hours a day and, since their metabolism is 40% slower than other mammals their size, sometimes sleep is more important than the food rewards that Hester gives Chalupa during their training sessions. Her favorite foods are green beans, grapes and hardboiled eggs.

“When I first started training her, she would be rewarded for just opening her eyes and looking at me when I said her name,” Hester said. “Then we built upon that. I would put my finger in front of her and when she moved toward it, she would be rewarded. After two weeks she was targeting and doing laps on the rope around her exhibit.”

After a few weeks of practicing in the enclosure, they opened up the door on the exhibit and had Chalupa travel on the ropes around the Monkey Pavilion. Eventually, the Zoo hopes to create an outdoor sloth area, and Chalupa’s training sessions with Hester with have her traveling from her indoor exhibit across the ceiling and to the outdoors!

To read more stories from The Waterhole, or to keep up with the latest news, events, and behind the scenes happenings at the Zoo, sign up to receive e-newsletters:  http://www.cmzoo.org/aboutZoo/pressBox/waterhole.asp.