Why has Luiza stopped moving on the map? | June 2026
This is the question many of you will likely be asking when looking at her latest movement updates.
This month, Luiza reminded us that even the best technology has its limits. Her collar battery has now stopped working, meaning we can no longer rely on the tracking signal that previously generated her movements on the map. As a result, ou are used to seeing has now gone quiet, not because Luiza has stopped moving, but because we are no longer able to detect her location.
For most sloths, this would already make monitoring more challenging, but for Luiza, our famously elusive canopy specialist, it takes things to another level entirely. With her strong preference for the highest treetops, she has an exceptional ability to disappear completely into the canopy, often leaving no visual trace even when we are certain she is nearby.
Before the signal was lost, Luiza was consistently using the same general area along the roadside edge of her range, moving between some of the tallest trees in the landscape. These trees are extremely difficult to survey from the ground, and even when the signal was active, visual confirmation was often limited to brief glimpses of fur or a limb within dense foliage.
A rare moment of Luiza in full view, captured back in March.
Now, without the support of the tracking signal, our ability to update her movements in real time is temporarily reduced. However, we know from long-term observations that sloths regularly descend from the canopy, and we also have a strong understanding of the general area Luiza occupies. This gives us a realistic opportunity to relocate her through careful field searches when the right moment arises.
The next step will be to wait for that opportunity so we can safely recapture Luiza and fit one of our new-generation collars. As part of a wider project-wide improvement, we are gradually replacing older units following unexpected battery failures. While this has been an unforeseen setback, it is also helping us improve the long-term reliability of our monitoring system and strengthen how we track urban sloths in complex environments.
For now, Luiza remains exactly where she has always been, somewhere high above the forest floor, out of sight, continuing her quiet life in the canopy, even if her “dot on the map” has temporarily gone still.
