Conservationists raised concerns Wednesday that proposed rule changes in reaction to the deaths of more than 50 imported sloths for the once-planned Sloth World attraction in Orlando do not go far enough.<\/p>\n
During a more than one-hour online hearing, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission outlined plans to require facilities and cages used to handle imported sloths to meet the same requirements as capuchin, spider, and woolly monkeys \u2014 new world monkeys native to the forests of Central and South America \u2014 and for the owners to document either 1,000 hours of sloth-specific experience or 500 hours as well as passing a written exam before a permit is approved.<\/p>\n
Those rule changes would also increase the minimum age of applicants from 16 to 18.<\/p>\n
Sloths would remain classified as Class III wildlife, a category for non-native, non-domesticated species such as lemurs, foxes, and various reptiles requiring minimal oversight.<\/p>\n
While supporting the \u201cdirection of these changes,\u201d Zara Palmer, representing the Sloth Conservation Institute and Sloth Conservation Foundation, said, \u201cwe do not believe they go far enough to protect sloths in Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palmer added that the proposals should also apply to existing permit holders.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery person providing hands-on care should demonstrate basic competency in sloth husbandry and welfare,\u201d Palmer said.<\/p>\n
The proposed changes are expected to go before the agency\u2019s commissioners during the December meeting in St. Augustine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conservationists raised concerns Wednesday that proposed rule changes in reaction to the deaths of more than 50 imported…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1563,28,29,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-396173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-environment","tag-florida","tag-florida-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396173","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=396173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}