(COLORADO SPRINGS) — A very important member of our community is celebrating a big birthday. Aysan, the sloth from Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, turned 10 years old.
Although we don’t always prefer a slow (pun intended) news day, Aysan’s birthday is definitely the exception.
“She’s our mama sloth. She joined us a few years ago… and fun fact, that name actually means, like, beautiful like the moon, which is actually perfect because they’re all really cute. But Aysan in particular is just absolutely gorgeous,” said Rebecca Zwicker, an Animal Care Manager at the zoo.
The zoo spared no expense for her big day. There was cupcakes, birthday cards, and a huge crowd to sing her happy birthday.
“The keepers like to celebrate birthdays. They keep very close tabs on whose birthday is when. So, sometimes it maybe is a little bit of a quiet thing, but usually the care team does something special for an animal. But a milestone like this is just a great reason to bring the community in and celebrate, partner with Children’s Hospital of Colorado, and just make an event of it,” said Zwicker.
As a new, first-time mom, she seemed to have lots of fun celebrating with her baby, Olive, and her mate, Bosco.
“Every once in a while, they can surprise you, move a little faster than you thought,” said Zwicker.
Aysan even lets baby Olive eat food right out of her mouth.
“Olive was born in mid-December, and so she’s a very independent little thing, but she’ll typically stay with mom for about a year. So most of the time you’re going to see Aysan and Olive, it’s a package deal, dangling together,” said Zwicker.
If you’d like to pay them a visit, this sloth family has plenty more birthdays to come
since they live to be about 40 years old in human care.
“Our sloths sleep for most of the day, but typically around 1030, 11:00 is breakfast time when they like to come down for food. And so if you’re at the zoo and you want to hedge your bets of being able to see the sloth family, usually being up in Scutes family gallery around 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. is a good bet,” said Zwicker.
The zoo also offers 21 and up nights called Tails, Tunes, and Tastes. They say those evenings could be a good opportunity to catch the sloths in action, since they’re mostly nocturnal.
