Inside Climate News.<\/a><\/p>\nLast week, Sloth World gave its 13 remaining sloths to the Central Florida Zoo, one of which arrived in very poor health and died Wednesday. The others, though some needed intensive treatments, are stable, the zoo said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an animal rights group, sent a letter to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement urging the agency to criminally investigate owners Ben Agresta and Peter Bandre for aggravated animal cruelty. The group said Bandre, described on Sloth World\u2019s website as \u201cone of the most respected sloth experts in the world,\u201d and Agresta \u201chad every reason to know\u201d the sloths were being kept in dangerous conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cPETA is thrilled to see Sloth World is being investigated,\u201d PETA Foundation legal counsel Cydnee Bance told the Orlando Sentinel.<\/p>\n
In her own letter to Uthmeier, Eskamani also called for a review of Sloth World\u2019s practices in bringing the sloths to Orlando.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe loss of dozens of animals under preventable conditions demands accountability,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThese reports raise not only questions of individual responsibility, but also broader concerns about regulatory oversight and enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inspection reports by the FWC revealed 31 deaths between December 2024 and February 2025. Twenty-one sloths from Guyana died from a \u201ccold stun\u201d on Dec. 22, 2024, after being left in a warehouse on International Drive that \u201cwas not properly set and ready to receive sloths during\u201d a period of low outdoor temperatures.<\/p>\n
Accustomed to a tropical climate, the animals languished inside the cold warehouse after space heaters set up in the facility shut down with no one present to correct it, records show.<\/p>\n
Agresta denied news reports about the sloths dying from the cold, instead pinning the cause on viral infections, Inside Climate News said.<\/p>\n
Ten more sloths died months later shortly after arriving from Peru, with two dead on arrival and the others, described as appearing \u201cemaciated and in very poor health,\u201d later succumbing to illness. Conservation groups said last week that Sloth World has decided not to open, and Uthmeier said it intends to file for bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
As of Friday, no court records on such an action could be found.<\/p>\n
The FWC was made aware of the deaths in an unannounced inspection of the facilities in August 2025, resulting in a verbal warning \u2014 not for the deaths, but for the cages in which the sloths were housed.<\/p>\n
The cages were too small, the agency said, but Sloth World replaced them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no legal basis for enforcement action or closure, and while the deaths of these animals are tragic, subsequent inspections found the facility compliant with care and housing standards,\u201d an FWC spokesperson said prior to Uthmeier\u2019s announcement of a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier confirmed Friday that a criminal probe is underway into the deaths of sloths…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[558,112,28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109,1316],"class_list":["post-254446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-business","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}