A Sloth Exhibitor Shut Down by New York Wants a Florida Comeback—and Florida Licensed Him

An exotic animal exhibitor whose sloth-encounters business was shuttered by New York courts is attempting to relaunch his operations in Florida, right as the state grapples with the fallout from sloth deaths at a different tourist attraction.

Government inspectors repeatedly found problems at Larry Wallach’s earlier businesses, including unsafe and unsanitary conditions for his sloths, kangaroos, tigers and capybaras, according to federal and state government records obtained by Inside Climate News. He continued operating his Long Island sloth business for more than a year after a 2023 court order to immediately close the location because of zoning violations, and the federal government declined to issue him a new wildlife-exhibition license in 2024.

Now, Wallach has filed paperwork in Florida to run a new pet store and encounter business called Wildlife Adventures, featuring sloths, kangaroos, reptiles and birds. On Sunday, he told Inside Climate News in a text message that he expects to open the business in two weeks.

To animal law experts and welfare groups, Wallach’s attempted comeback highlights broader shortcomings in oversight of exotic animal exhibitors. They argue that weak laws and limited enforcement allow repeat offenders to continue acquiring animals, profiting from them and violating the law.

Wallach—clutching a live sloth—appeared last month before the Margate City Commission, 25 miles north of Miami, to pitch the proposed business.

“I’ve been raising animals since I was like 15—tigers, bears, lions, everything,” Wallach said. “But my real love is for sloths, and I’m looking to open up a store in Margate that would almost be very, very educational.”

Sloths, tree-dwelling mammals from the tropical rainforests of South America, are extremely ill-suited to captivity, scientists say.

Wallach’s proposal comes as Florida officials are scrutinizing the commercial sloth trade following an Inside Climate News investigation in April into Sloth World, a separate planned tourist attraction that imported dozens of sloths from Peru and Guyana. More than 50 of those animals died. In May, state officials temporarily halted sloth imports and said they were pursuing a criminal investigation.

Larry Wallach holds a juvenile tiger at his home in East Rockaway, N.Y. Credit: Courtesy of Bobby Zigman

Wallach was not involved in that business. He told Inside Climate News he has owned 11 sloths and conducted between 25,000 and 30,000 public encounters with the animals over several years in New York. He said he would like to acquire more sloths to have about 20 at his new business.

He also asserted that all of his sloths are captive-bred rather than imported from the wild and that his animals are well-suited for captivity. He declined to provide the names of the breeders or verification of the sloths’ origin. State import records list Wallach as the recipient of two sloths brought into Florida in August 2025.

Wallach told Inside Climate News those sloths were imported into Florida from another U.S. state. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission did not respond to multiple requests for clarification, but did say it approved Wallach’s state license to display wildlife to the public.

The agency “is aware of Wallach’s history of exhibiting wildlife outside the state and FWC investigators continue to monitor the situation actively,” a spokesperson said in a written statement to Inside Climate News, adding: “Any violations will be investigated and addressed immediately.”

Exotic animal exhibitors like Wallach must also obtain federal approval and are routinely inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA told Inside Climate News that Wallach no longer has a federal license after the agency denied his application for a new one in 2024 based on an Animal Welfare Act regulation that requires the USDA to deny licensing to applicants who have made false statements, violated the law, entered a plea of no contest to government allegations “or is otherwise unfit to be licensed.”

Harold Somer, one of Wallach’s attorneys, told Inside Climate News that his client’s 2024 license application was denied because the “USDA had clearly been relying on unverified and incorrect information fed to it by others.”

A sloth inside the encounter room at Larry Wallach’s Long Island store on July 30, 2022. Credit: Nicole Rice.

Wallach told Inside Climate News that he is now applying for another federal license and expects to get it, a point his attorney reiterated in a written statement.

Wallach has been in the exotic animal exhibition business for decades. His early businesses—from a traveling menagerie to an Ohio mall storefront—featured tigers and other big cats. Wallach opened his Long Island “Sloth Encounters” store in 2022. Throughout, Wallach has accrued dozens of infractions in USDA inspection reports, some the agency considered serious .

Somer said his client appealed some USDA inspection re…