Dear Friend,
By now, you’ve likely heard the heartbreaking news out of Sloth World, the for-profit roadside attraction off International Drive that has since gone bankrupt. Over the course of its operation and now closure, 55 wild sloths have died, animals that, in all cases, were taken from the rainforest and brought into Central Florida for human entertainment.
This crisis was first brought to my attention by a constituent who refused to look away. The moment we learned what was happening, our office jumped into action, contacting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Congressman Maxwell Frost’s office, local officials, and leading wildlife experts to demand answers.
What we heard back from FWC was unacceptable. According to the agency, no laws had been broken. That was an answer we were not willing to accept — not when 55 animals are dead, not when wild sloths were ripped from their natural habitat for profit.
So we escalated. We reached out to the State Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office to push for a deeper review. As a result, a criminal probe is now underway, with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) assisting in the investigation.
We didn’t stop there. Our office welcomed The Sloth Institute and the Sloth Conservation Foundation from Costa Rica to Orlando for a series of press events and meetings — elevating the science, the ethics, and the policy gaps that allowed this to happen in the first place.
And we’ve helped build a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in both Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., committed to making sure this never happens again.
That work continues today. The conversations, meetings, and policy drafting are ongoing because we want accountability now and long-term policy change that protects wildlife from being exploited for profit ever again.
Thank you for being part of this fight. Constituent voices started this — and constituent voices will see it through.
Onward,
