20/08/2026
57 sloths died. Today, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office concluded that no criminal neglect occurred.
We have now reviewed the investigation, and while we recognize that OCSO was assessing this case against the specific standards established under current Florida law, we find the outcome deeply troubling. Because the evidence documented in the report speaks for itself.
The investigation includes accounts of inadequate preparation, environmental and husbandry concerns, nutritional problems, transport stress, animals arriving sick and compromised, cages that did not meet AZA recommendations, and surviving sloths arriving at the Central Florida Zoo in poor condition. Even the experts consulted by investigators did not agree on what ultimately drove the mortality event.
And yet, under the existing legal framework, investigators concluded that the evidence did not meet the threshold for criminal neglect.
Several accounts point to serious problems beginning before the animals even reached Florida, including concerns surrounding capture, conditions in source countries, nutrition, health before shipment, and international transport.
That only strengthens the case we have been making from the beginning: if U.S. regulators cannot guarantee what happens to wild sloths throughout the international supply chain, they should not be imported for commercial entertainment in the first place.
These animals were taken from the wild to generate profit. Whether anyone intended for them to die is not the only question we should be asking.
How was this allowed to happen? And if everything that happened still falls outside the threshold for criminal accountability, how urgently do our laws need to change?
The case has now been referred to the State Attorney’s Office, and our work continues.
Through the Sloth Protection Alliance, The Sloth Conservation Foundation and The Sloth Institute will continue working with policymakers and wildlife authorities to push for stronger protections, accountability, and an end to the commercial importation of wild-caught sloths.
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