Sloth Takes Zoo Tour
Flash the sloth has spent a busy morning taking a tour of Drusillas Park and visiting her monkey neighbours for the first time. Zoo Animal Manager, Mark Kenward, took the curious sloth on the special tour before popping her back to bed for a well deserved nap.
Mark has a special bond with Flash; he hand-reared her along with Deputy Head Keeper, Gemma Romanis, after Flash was left orphaned at birth. This special bond allows Mark to safely handle Flash, as she still recognises him as a parent figure.
Zoo Animal Manager, Mark Kenward, said: “Keeping our animals active both mentally and physical is a core part of the daily enrichment programme at Drusillas Park. We are always looking for new and creative ways to stimulate our animals, and the zoo tour for Flash was a great way to entertain her!”
“Flash is a naturally very curious sloth. When she’s not sleeping she is carefully watching visitors and studying the other animals in her enclosure. She’s never been shy either, whenever we feed her she is straight over to inspect us and see what we have to offer! It has been a real honour to raise and care for such an incredible animal.”
Flash’s first stop on her zoo tour was the cotton top tamarins and the common marmosets. These tiny monkeys live in a enclosure around the coroner from Flash, so she wouldn’t normally get to see these cheeky creatures.
Zoo Animal Manager, Mark Kenward, said: “It was a really special moment to introduce Flash to animals she had never seen before. She was so interested in them! You could really see her leaning back to get a good look at the monkeys. The cotton top tamarins were really fascinated by Flash as well, this would have been a totally new experience for them too! It really was amazing to see these incredible species meeting for the first time.”
After a carefully studying her primate friends, Flash moved on to meet the Rock Hyrax family.
Zoo Animal Manager, Mark Kenward, said: “Flash loved seeing the Hyraxes, she literally came face to face with one of the older hyraxes, and gave him a really good inspection. She can normally see the Hyraxes from her enclosure as they live opposite each other, but this was the first time she got so close to them. It’s amazing to be able to introduce them, in the wild they would live in very different places, so it was great to be able to show them to each other.”
“Today was a big learning experience for Flash and it will have been a very enriching experience for her. Definitely something we will do again, it was clear to see how much she enjoyed taking her tour.”
After meeting the hyraxes, Flash was ready for a nap! She happily climbed back into her tree perch and promptly fell fast asleep.