Re: Giant Sloth Search Backround2

["Terry Colvin" <colvint@CC.IMS.DISA.MIL>]

 And here's a second article....
 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Search For Brazil Sloth Starts
> 2/22/94
> 
>  RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- It's huge, smelly and cries like a
> human being. And it would be the biggest mammal in the Amazon -- if
> it exists.
>  The giant sloth, a relative of an extinct great sloth that lived
> 8,700 years ago, has been reportedly sighted across the region. On
> Tuesday, an American zoologist -- armed with a shotgun and an oxygen
> mask -- set off to search for the animal.
>  ``The number of details in reports of sightings makes me believe
> it does indeed exist,'' David Oren told The Associated Press in a
> phone interview Monday night from his office at the Goeldi Museum
> in the eastern Amazon city of Belem.
>  Oren, who will search for evidence in the rain forest of the
> northwestern state of Rondonia, believes he can find the animal, or
> at least the bones of one reportedly killed late last year by gold
> miners.
>  Oren said he planned to spend three weeks searching for the
> carcass of the sloth, which allegedly was 6 feet long and weighed
> 660 pounds.
>  From Belem, Oren was flying to Rondonia's capital of Porto
> Velho, 2,320 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro. Then, he planned to
> continue by bus and on foot for about two days to reach the jungle
> farm where the sloth was reportedly killed.
>  Oren, of Boston, said he had arranged a meeting with the miners
> who claimed to have killed the sloth.
>  ``Hopefully they will be able to find the spot where they left
> it,'' the 40-year-old zoologist said.
>  Sloths are slow-moving, tree-dwelling mammals that hang upside
> down from branches and feed on leaves and fruits. Much smaller
> sloths, about the size of a house cat, live in tropical Central and
> South America.
>  In reporting the giant sloth, people across the Amazon have
> described the same feces, eating habits, behavior, and bedding, he
> said. According to most accounts, it eats palm-tree hearts and
> other foliage, and becomes aggressive if its habitat is invaded.
>  Oren interviewed Canamari Indians in the Jurua valley of
> Amazonas state, north of Rondonia, who raised two infant sloths on
> bananas and milk when hunters scared off the mother.
>  ``Later, they were given foliage, and after one or two years the
> unbearable smell of their skin prompted the Indians to release
> them,'' Oren said.
>  Oren thinks the fetid smell reportedly exuded by the animal
> comes from a badly functioning stomach gland. He and his guide will
> take along oxygen masks and shotguns on their search.
>  It is widely believed among the Canamari that the giant sloths
> are still alive. Canamari hunters say they see them occasionally,
> he said.
>  The sloth reportedly emits sounds like human beings, Oren
> explained. Tales have it that rubber tappers and hunters confuse
> the cries of the sloth in the jungle with those of a person.
>  The giant sloth is often associated with the Mapinguari, a
> mythical beast. According to legend, the Mapinguari was a shaman
> who wanted eternal life and was transformed into a monster.
> 


Ciao!

Ben....




--
"I am forever walking upon these shores  @ \/       Ben S. Roesch   @
Betwixt the sand and the foam.           @ /\FILES  "GRRROOOVEY!!!" @
The wind will blow away the foam The sea will wash away my footprint
But the shore and the sea will last forever." -- Otto Roesch