Four habitats – cacao agroforests, living fence rows, pastures with isolated trees and
riparian forests – accounted for the largest portion of the study landscape and recorded the
majority of the sloth relocations. Both species of sloths appeared to establish home ranges
that included portions of more than one habitat (Fig. 1 and 2) and a few animals included parts of three or four habitats, thereby expanding the range of tree species available for
feeding and resting. Two-toed and three-toed sloths established home ranges that occupied
different portions of the study landscape, so ‘potential available habitat’ for each sloth
species also varied. For example, cacao agroforests comprised only about 20% of the
potential available habitat for three-toed sloths but represented almost 40% of the potential
available habitat for two-toed sloths (Table 4).
Within the potential available habitat for three-toed sloths, more than 88% occurred as
riparian forests (35%), pastures (32.5%) and cacao (20.6%), with only 12% in other land
uses (Table 4). Three-toed sloths appeared to form home ranges between 4 and 7 ha in size
that contained fewer tree species than characteristic of two-toed sloths. Frequency distributions
of three-toed sloth habitat use relative to the occurrence of habitats on the landscape
indicate that cacao was used more or less in proportion to its availability, although
three-toed sloths were never observed to feed on Theobroma cacao. Pasture and banana
plantations were used substantially less then expected, while riparian forest and living
fence rows were used more than expected (Table 4). Three-toed sloths were never observed
entering pineapple plantations.
Almost 80% of the potential available habitat for two-toed sloths occurred as pasture
(39.9%) and cacao agroforests (39.6 %), with all other land uses accounting for the other
20% (Table 4). As with the three-toed sloths, living fences and riparian forests were used