4 dead: 'Sloth World' sloth, Mr. Ginger, dies

Indexed: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Breaking news at the Central Florida Zoo. The youngest sloth rescued from Sloth World has died. Thanks for joining us on this Friday. I'm Lu Ann [music] Csoral.

[00:00:08]>> And I'm Hannah McKenzie. Mr. Ginger was only about 4 to 6 months old and much of his life was spent fighting to survive.

[00:00:16]He was euthanized [music] about an hour ago. Fox 35's Garrett Weimer joins us live in the studio now. So, Garrett, today actually marks 3 weeks since the sloths were taken in by the zoo after being given up by Sloth World's owner.

[00:00:28]Yeah, Mr. Ginger was a fighter, the vet team says, and he held on as long as he could. The fourth sloth death now since the Central Florida Zoo took in those animals. They say Mr. Ginger was in an extremely fragile condition from the start. Now, the vet team had to hand-feed him every few hours, they said. He spent a lot of his time in an incubator to try to regulate his body temperature. He was one of 13 sloths the zoo started taking care of amid that investigation into Sloth World. Fox 35 broke this story, been following up on it for weeks now. Our records show dozens of sloths died under Sloth World's care. And now state and federal leaders are looking into how it happened and how to prevent it from happening again.

[00:01:09]But, questions remain about accountability. Some have called for criminal charges in this, and lawmakers are also looking at closing the loopholes that less let uh Sloth World's practices continue. Uh this week FWC announced steps to temporarily ban the import of sloths to Florida.

[00:01:26]As for Mr. Ginger, the zoo says they took care of him as well as they could, but his condition just got so bad that they had to euthanize him. So, a sad update there, but we do have a little bit of good news, too. At least two other sloths, we're told, are now out of intensive care. Live in the Alert Center, Garrett Weimer, Fox 35 News.