THE SIX-YEAR-OLD SLOTH PASSED AWAY ON WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24, DUE TO HEART DISEASE – Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is reflecting on the impact that Bean, a Hoffmann’s two-toed sloth who lived in The Loft, made on members, guests and staff. Bean passed away on Wed., Sept. 24 after a short illness.
Last week, Bean lost her appetite and was ‘off,’ so she went to the Zoo’s veterinary hospital for supportive treatment and bloodwork, which revealed kidney disease. By Wednesday, her kidney levels had improved due to her care team’s support, but Bean unfortunately passed away unexpectedly that evening. On Thursday, a necropsy (an animal autopsy) revealed significant heart disease, which did not present heart-specific symptoms that would lead to heart testing in such a young sloth.
Bean was born on May 14, 2019, in Monkey Pavilion, which used to sit where the Zoo’s playhills are now. A guest favorite from the start, she was the first sloth born at the Zoo in 15 years, and she was born in view of a few lucky visitors who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
In her first few months, she allowed guests and staff to feed her grapes, which she eagerly took, exposing her adorable bright pink tongue. She was extremely outgoing, appearing on several local television stations who sent crews out to meet her.
When Bean reached maturity, she moved to The Loft, where she quickly connected with guests who could look up to see her as she explored the rafters overhead. The confident and curious sloth had been known to temporarily snag a guest’s hat or two from her overhead vantage point.
“Sloths have a reputation for being slow, but Bean was pretty fast when she wanted to be,” Jackie Watson, senior animal keeper in The Loft, says. “I loved when she’d climb right in front of our ‘Welcome to The Loft’ sign, like she was our guests’ official welcome sloth. People would always ask with excitement, ‘Is that sloth real?’ and then we’d get to tell them all about her and her species.”
She had an endearing mischievous and adventurous side, but her keepers will remember her as focused, self-aware and incredibly intelligent.
“It’s my passion to connect people with animals, and Bean made my work easy,” Jackie says. “She had such a knack for it that I could sit back and watch her work her magic, with very little input needed from me. I think she had such good energy because she had good boundaries. If a group of guests wasn’t interacting with her to her preferences, she wouldn’t hesitate to just leave. I aspire to her level of genuine connection, intelligence and spunk.”
Bean’s intelligence was groundbreaking. She knew how to enter a crate voluntarily, position herself for visual health checks, and she was close to perfecting a cooperative blood draw – unheard of in sloth care as far as her care team knows.
She was also the only sloth in the Zoo’s history to perfect painting. Keepers fixed a paintbrush to a stick that Bean could hold in one hand while she hung upside down. They would hold a canvas near Bean, and she would paint on the canvas and receive her favorite snacks – hard-boiled eggs and primate biscuits — as rewards for participating. Many guests over the years enjoyed painting sessions with Bean, or purchased artwork created by Bean to support the Zoo’s animal care.
“When she first moved to The Loft, I started training her to paint so we had more opportunities to bond,” Cassie Spero, senior animal keeper in The Loft, says. “A couple of months later, she was swiping a paint brush on canvases, my hands, and often her face. We bonded so much that whenever I was training a skunk, owl, or porcupine, she would wake up, climb to wherever I was, and hang down from the ropes to interrupt my other training sessions. Bean helped shape my career, and I am forever grateful to have had the opportunity to get to know her.”
In addition to painting sessions, Bean was part of countless marriage proposals, birthdays, anniversaries and just-because special encounters inside and outside of The Loft. She loved the sunshine, and Bean’s team worked to extend her rope system outside to the front porch of The Loft so she could enjoy it frequently.
“On sunny days, we’d open up the doors and I’d hang out with her in the sunshine,” Alia Cooper, senior animal keeper in The Loft, says. “Her body would totally relax while she soaked up the sunshine, and I loved getting to tell people about her as they walked by. People would come to The Loft to see her, and she opened the door for people to stay and learn about reptiles and smaller animals that they might not otherwise visit.”
Bean made a lasting impact and will be deeply missed. Her father, Bosco (33), her half-sister, Olive (9 months) and Olive’s mom, Asyan (10), live in Scutes Family Gallery.
About Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society was founded in 1926. Today, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, America’s mountain Zoo, offers comprehensive education programs, exciting conservation efforts and truly fantastic animal experiences. In 2025, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was voted #2 Best Zoo in North America and CMZoo’s Rocky Mountain Wild was named #2 Best Zoo Exhibit in North America by USA TODAY 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. It is Cheyenne Mountain Zoo’s goal to help guests fall in love with animals and nature, and take action to protect them. Of the 237 zoos and aquariums accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), Cheyenne Mountain Zoo is one of just a few operating without tax support. Cheyenne Mountain Zoo depends on admissions, membership dues, special event attendance and donations for to fund animal care, conservation, Zoo operations and improvements.