For the love of sloth
My name is Lucy Cooke and I’m a National geographic explorer, zoologist, writer, filmmaker and TV presenter with a passion for odd animals.
I especially love sloths. I always have. I love their sweet smiles, slo-mo lifestyles and innate hug-a-bility. I believe that being fast is over-rated and the sloth is the true king of the jungle. But he is rarely seen as such, which is why I founded the Sloth Appreciation Society.
In 2010 I traveled to a sleepy corner of Costa Rica to visit the 150 sonorous residents of the world’s first sloth orphanage.
I made a short video, “Meet the Sloths”, which went viral within days and was picked up by newspapers across the world from the Huffington Post to the Guardian.
The video has now been watched by over 10 million people and gathered famous fans like Ashton Kutcher, Ricky Gervaise, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and most recently Kristen Bell. According to the Washington Post sloths are now ‘the new kittens’. And several videos later I have apparently become ‘the Speilberg of sloth videos’.
I’ve since made an award-winning documentary about the sanctuary for Animal Planet called ‘Too Cute! Baby Sloths’ in the US and ‘Meet the Sloths’ in the UK. It rated through the roof and an 8 part series has now been commissioned and should air in Autumn 2013. Go sloths!
My first book, ‘A Little Book of Sloth’ featuring my funny sloth photos and stories has just become a New York Times bestseller.
It’s had amazing reviews including a prestigious starred review in Publishers Weekly: ‘Cooke writes with a loving irreverence that lifts these pages far above most real-life animal books’
A percentage of sales will go towards sloth conservation. You can pre-order a copy here.
The Aviarios sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica relies on donations to continue rescuing and rehabilitating injured and orphaned sloths. If you like the work I do and love the sloths then please click here to make a donation. And please remember that as cute as they are, sloths belong in the wild and should never be kept as pets.
