Arthur the celebrity sloth makes appearance in Belleville

Arthur the two-toed sloth meeting guests at the Diversity of Living Things exhibit at the Travelodge in Belleville. Photo by Lindsey Cook. 

By Jessica Clement

BELLEVILLE – Arthur the two-toed sloth made an appearance at the Belleville Travelodge last weekend to raise money for Little Ray’s Reptile Zoos.

The zoos have locations in Hamilton, Ottawa, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and the United States.

Head zookeeper Shawn Adderley says caretakers at the zoo have been calling the effect that Arthur has on crowds the sloth factor.

“It’s super common for us to come to towns and have people actually full-on ‘ugly crying’, like, Kristen Bell-ing when they see our sloth,” he said.

Arthur is 14 to 16 months old, according to Adderley, and has been touring Canada since November 2017, helping staff that run the Diversity of Living Things exhibit educate people on local and exotic wildlife. Born in Florida, Roger was raised specifically to be exhibited for zoological educational purposes.

“Animals who are saved from the wild aren’t going to be acclimated to people and human interaction. They would be very, very uncomfortable in an (educational) environment such as ours,” Adderley said.

Although Arthur is use to human interaction, all of the zoo’s sloths are completely hands-off to the public, and even other caretakers, Adderley said. There is one dedicated caretaker that looks after all of the sloths in order to prevent cross-contamination between different animals.

The exhibit showcased animals ranging from scorpions, snakes and lizards to larger mammals such as a kangaroo and Arthur himself.

Adderley explained that Little Ray’s Reptile Zoo is the largest exotic pet and reptile zoo in Canada. He said that 85 per cent of the zoo’s animals have been rescued from either people who couldn’t care for them anymore, or people who shouldn’t have had them in the first place.

“An alligator certainly doesn’t belong in a bathtub, but you’d be surprised how many animals we’ve rescued from people that had these animals in environments they should not have been in,” he said.

It’s money made from shows such as the exhibit at the Travelodge hotel that allow the zoo to continue rescuing animals. Tickets to the exhibit ranged from $12.50 to $56 for larger packages.

“These animals otherwise would have been in very terrible situations, or many of them would have been euthanized.”

Last year, the zoo was able to do the largest move of crocodilians (crocodiles, alligators and caimans) that’s ever been done, according to Adderley, because of the money raised from exhibits.

“We took well over 30 individual crocodilians from around North America that had either grown too big for their respected facilities, or again, were in places they shouldn’t have been. We moved them from their facilities down to one in the southern United States where they’re now able to live in an outdoor environment closer to their natural environment.”

A move such as this costs well over $90,000, Adderley said, without factoring in the cost for staff to care for the animals.

The animals at Belleville show, including Arthur, will have a two-week break to relax back at their respected zoos before hitting the road again for their next stop on the Diversity of Living Things tour. Arthur is expected to be showcased next in Saint John, N.B.