A friend recently asked me a couple of questions about sloths that I have no idea how to answer. So I'm going to ask you. Could you train a sloth to be faster? Can sloths be domesticated?
Nope! There are numerous biological reasons that sloths are slow-moving, so it’s not something you can really change. Here’s a great link that explains more! https://slothconservation.com/sloths-move-slow/
And that’s an interesting question! So for one thing, what does domestication require? I pulled this quote from this article:
1. The animal needs to be able to eat a lot of different thing and be willing to live off the scraps of humans. If the animals are able to eat stuff humans can't, such as grass, then even better. This also makes strict carnivores somewhat more difficult to domesticate than other animals, as it commits humans to providing a ready food source of other animals for them to eat.
2. The animals need to grow up fast, or at least faster than humans. There's not much point in trying to domesticate extremely long-lived species like elephants or tortoises, as it can take several years before they're even remotely useful, and their long life cycle limits how quickly their numbers can be replenished.
3. The animals must be willing to breed in the close quarters of captivity. Any creature that demands a lot of open territory in order to breed - pandas and antelopes are good examples of this - are terrible domestication candidates.
4. The animals have to be naturally pleasant. An unpredictable or ill-tempered beast is just going to be dangerous to attempt to keep enclosed in a small area. It's possible to meet some animals halfway on this - for instance, the American bison can be kept in huge enclosures on ranches - but that's as close as we can get to full-on domestication for species like that.
5. It isn't just pleasantness - the animals need to be calm as well. Skittish or flighty animals will constantly attempt to escape, and it can be almost impossible to control them even if escape is impossible. This is what seems to have kept foxes from being successfully domesticated, as they're far more skittish than dogs and wolves.
6. The animals need to be willing to recognize humans as their new masters, which means they must have a flexible social hierarchy.
Based on those criteria, I’m gonna guess that no, sloths are not likely candidates for domestication. While two-toed sloths apparently have a pretty varied diet, three-toeds only eat leaves from a few trees, which is a VERY limited diet. So that makes #1 fairly unfitting.
Sloths also live 20-30 years, which is pretty long to be a very good candidate for #2, but doesn’t entirely rule them out, considering a lot of livestock have similar lifespans.
I’m not sure how well they fit #3, as I’m not sure if there has been much captive breeding of the species. In any case, their slow breeding is another strike against them, as they only have one baby at a time, and typically only once a year or less.
They do seem to be at least somewhat tractable compared to other wildlife, which is probably helped by their slow metabolism & movements. But they’re not a social species at all, and spend most of their alone except for breeding. So they’re unlikely to have much reason to be all that interested in cooperating or interacting with humans at all.
So I’m gonna guess no, they’re not a very good candidate for domestication. Also related to that subject, being sold as pets IS a danger for them, and they do NOT make good pets, due to their very specific needs! Cute, but not a good option to support as a pet.
Info on sloths came from wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth and https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/two-toed-sloth
