Stuffed sloth taken down from perch overlooking I-5 near Bellingham

After watching over drivers on northbound Interstate 5 near Bellingham for more than a year, a giant stuffed sloth had its last day atop a tree near Lake Samish on Tuesday.

Sloths aren’t native to Washington, or North America for that matter (at least in the last few thousand years), and Washington State Department of Transportation crews decided it was time to take the toy dubbed “Slothy” down from the 70-foot tree during a break in the weather with “a 125-ft bucket truck & some true skills,” the agency reported on X.

The 8-foot sloth’s only crime? Encouraging drivers to take a page from its playbook and getting them to slow down.

“And when you’re driving on the highway, that’s not a good thing. We’ve heard that drivers were slowing down to get a closer look or driving distracted to try to snap a picture,” WSDOT wrote in a post on Facebook.

Drivers have logged the status of their wildlife highway watcher for more than a year in a thread on a Bellingham Reddit page. In the comment section, Redditors recorded the last time they saw “Slothy,” when he was still safely perched in the tree.

But the giant stuffed toy didn’t depart without teaching a valuable lesson. 

“Slothy DOES remind us that it’s important to slow down … in work zones and in life,” WSDOT wrote online. “But otherwise, let’s leave our 8-foot stuffed animals in their natural habitats: On a bed made for giants. Not anywhere near our right of way. Leave the tree-dwelling to real sloths and keep your eyes on the road ahead.”