A Special Bridge for a Special Sloth | August 2025
Back in May, just days after sending out Deborah’s latest update, we shared some exciting news with our Connected Gardens supporters.
The Connected Gardens Project began with a simple but powerful idea: any garden or property can become part of a living biological corridor. Here in the South Caribbean, where urban development often fragments the forest, our goal is to restore and reconnect sloth habitat using canopy bridges, so wildlife can move safely across the landscape.
In one of our earliest videos and photos, Deborah is just meters away from a dusty, busy road. Far too close for comfort.
In the area where Deborah lives, we installed a small cluster of six canopy bridges, along with camera traps to monitor activity. While reviewing the footage from one of the bridges, Dayber, our bridge installer and sloth handler, came across something truly special: a sloth with a collar and a baby.
It was Deborah and little Mel! The timestamps in the camera trap footage show that Debbie and Mel used the bridge several times!
You can see more about this moment and other wildlife sightings from the project in our full Connected Gardens update May 2025.
Ticking Clocks and Tricky Trees
By May, Deborah’s collar had started to run low on battery, and we knew time was running out. If Mel became independent and Deborah shifted territories before we could retrieve the collar, we might lose track of her.
Changing the collar became our top priority, but easier said than done. She was often in tricky spots: on branches too thin to support a climber, too high for a ladder, or far too close to power lines to be safe. On top of that, the area is visited by several other sloths (some with babies of their own), which made identification more difficult than usual.
Bye Bye, Baby Mel
And then, it happened. Mel became independent.
During our last outings in July, we spotted Deborah by herself, and a juvenile sloth nearby. We believe it’s Mel, although we can't say for certain just yet. What surprised us most was that Deborah didn’t leave the area after Mel separated, as we expected she might. Instead, she stayed right where she’s always been, returning to the same trees she’s used for the past three years.
This was a huge relief, because just around that time, her collar finally stopped working.
Finally, the collaring!
The day before the successful capture, we tried to catch her in a coconut palm tree. However, it was quite tall -even for our 8-meter ladder. José gave it a try, but when he attempted to grab her, she moved over to a neighboring beach almond tree and climbed higher. Honestly, we thought that was it. She usually disappears for days after every capture attempt.
But on August 6, after months of checking daily for the perfect opportunity, the odds were finally on our side. We spotted Deborah resting in an old tree with thick, climbable branches. It was a good chance, so Dayber and Deily got to work, starting the climb.
As expected, she didn’t make it easy. Deborah put up a good fight, as she always does. After five to ten minutes of wrestling with our stuffed teddy bear, Dayber managed to bring her to the ground.
We replaced her collar and fitted a new data logger as well. After the release, she was still in full defense mode, so we gave her space to climb back up and settle.
While collecting data, we noticed just how much she has grown. Compared to the first time we collared her, she looks massive now!
She’s a big girl now!
When we first collared Debbie, she was a juvenile weighing 4.1 kg (about 9 lbs) and measured 49 cm long (around 19 inches). Now, as an adult, she has nearly doubled her weight to 7.5 kg (about 16.5 lbs) and measures 76 cm (roughly 30 inches) in length!
In the following days, we tracked her movements, and unsurprisingly, she hadn't left the area. lt seems that nothing will convince Deborah to move from the place she calls home. This recollaring marks exactly three years of continuous monitoring of Deborah, as we first collared her in August 2022!
Debbie has already given us so many memorable moments-and her adulthood is just beginning! We can't wait to see what surprises she has in store. See you in the next update!
