Sloth Watch 2013: It's On!

Look very closely at the center of the photo.

One of the main reasons my dad came to visit us in Panama was to check out sloths, and so Sloth Watch was born. Vlad and I had seen several of the slow gangly-armed creatures on Isla Bastimentos but hadn't seen a single one since. I was beginning to get worried. What if the sloths are on some kind of hiatus this time of year? What if - perish the thought - my dad doesn't get to see one doing its thing in the wild.

It's times like this when one should emulate the sloth and just relax while staring furiously into the dense jungle canopy. And when one should trust in Vlad's eagle eyes.

We had spent a nice morning wandering the trails of the Parque Natural Metropolitano, a huge park in the middle of Panama City, and I had developed an uncomfortable crick in my neck from staring up into the trees, not to mention a growing unease about tripping over a rock. The sloths were nowhere to be seen.

That's when we came to a break in the foliage, and Vlad noticed a ball of fur high up in a tree scratching itself with one clawed paw. It was a big, male three-toed doing what sloths do best, which is, truth be told, not much of anything. We sat down, ate cookies and watched it do just that.

Sloth watching at its best.