Last year we met folly’s newest family member Button the sloth, but now we welcome another sloth, Nova, who - fingers crossed - has come to be Button’s new boyfriend. He’s been here at folly farm for 2 weeks, and his keeper Kim has said he’s already made himself right at home, with the hope of some baby sloths at some point in the future.
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00:00 You are good. Hello, Loic.
00:03 So yeah, we've just recently welcomed a new male sloth called Nova.
00:08 He's just over three years old now and he's joining Button to be part of the European breeding programme
00:14 to hopefully fall in love and give us some baby sloths in the future.
00:19 Kim says that sloths are definitely one of the favourites for people coming to Folly Farm
00:23 and showing the public these fascinating creatures helps teach people about their struggles in the wild.
00:28 As well, public absolutely love sloths.
00:31 They love coming to see them and just being here representing the animals and their wild cousins
00:38 can really help boost conservation issues and raise money for charities as well.
00:43 So by having them here, we're representing their cousins in the wild.
00:47 Kim has been really impressed with Nova and Button so far.
00:50 She says that hopefully love is just around the corner.
00:53 So he has only been here just over two weeks now, so he's still settling in really well.
00:59 But yeah, so far everything's gone really, really lovely.
01:02 He met Button on the first day and to be honest, they weren't that fussed,
01:07 which is exactly what we want when we are introducing animals.
01:10 We don't want any heightened stress or anything.
01:13 The breeding programme is incredibly important.
01:15 Nova came from another zoo in England, which is also a part of the programme,
01:18 and they're now linked across the world, ensuring the population will live on in the future.
01:23 So it's always a great opportunity to be part of these things in captivity.
01:27 It helps create a backup population.
01:31 Thankfully for this species of sloth, they are least concerned in the wild.
01:35 So the numbers are doing quite well, but they are still faced with issues like the pet trade,
01:40 just the wildlife trade in general is causing a big impact on sloth numbers.
01:45 But even things like climate change are also impacting them,
01:48 because even though they do live in lovely hot tropical rainforests in South America,
01:52 climate change is impacting them and winters are getting colder,
01:55 which is causing massive impacts on sloths.
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