Photo by Juan Arredondo juanarre | In northern Colombia, baby sloths are poached and illegally trafficked as pets, a trade that peaks during the year-end holiday season. Before the pandemic, writer natashaldaly and I set out to track down a sloth cartel, as part of National Geographic's continuing coverage of wildlife trade and tourism. We'd learned about Isaac Bedoya, who police believe trafficked 10,000 baby sloths before he was arrested. We met poachers and followed them as they searched for sloths in territory largely controlled by armed groups, in order to document how this trade operates. This mother sloth, stunned after poachers cut her and her newborn baby down from a tree, sweeps her arm toward them in a defensive motion. People often mistakenly think sloths are easygoing and unperturbed by human handling—their faces even give the impression that they’re smiling—but the animals are stressed easily, and many poached from the wild die quickly in captivity. This newborn was too ...