Alfriston Zoo Park Giving Away 'Once In A Lifetime' Sloth Experience

Drusillas Zoo in Sussex is giving away a 'once-in-a-lifetime' opportunity - a close encounter feeding experience with their resident sloths Flash and Gordon.

The prize draw is being held to raise money for sloths in the wild.

Knowing how popular sloths are among their visitors (and with a waiting list of more than a year to meet them) Drusillas is offering the winner the chance to spend some magical moments with Flash and Gordon, hand feeding the pair - all to fundraise for their conservation Charity of the Year, The Sloth Conservation Foundation (SloCo).

Sloth fans who would like to be in with a chance of being up close to the adorable pair are invited to enter the fundraiser prize draw with all monies raised donated to SloCo.  Drusillas hopes to raise enough money to help support SloCo’s Sloth Census Project with the purchase of sloth VHF collars which cost a huge £2,000 each.

SloCo, based in Costa Rica, is dedicated to the protection of sloths living in wild and human-modified habitats through research, education and community-based conservation. They are currently embarking on their biggest project to date - the great sloth population census, having trained and employed the use of the first ever sloth detection dogs.

Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, dog attacks, traffic, and powerlines are all significant threats to sloth survival, say the Drusillas team, two of whom recently witnessed the problems in Costa Rica firsthand.

However, the largest and most invisible threat, they say, is ignorance.

Without accurate data on wild sloth populations, governments cannot pass protective legislation, NGOs cannot assess the effectiveness of conservation programs, and sloth genetic diversity may reach a critical state before anyone even knows what’s wrong.

Anyone entering the prize draw, which closes on April 16, will be helping support this 'crucial' project.

Drusillas now holds five Linne’s two-toed sloths, including seven-year-old Flash who was hand-reared by the Park’s resident sloth specialists, Mark Kenward and Gemma Romanis.

Anyone wishing to enter the prize draw can do see at the link here https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/win-a-baby-sloth-close-encounter-experience.