An international wildlife trading organization has imposed stricter regulations on the sale and transfer of sloths from their native habitats, in an effort to better control the practice. 

According to Mongabay, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, included a pair of sloth species in a list that imposes very strict requirements on their international trade and works to protect the species from "selfie tourism."

Linné's two-toed sloth and Hoffmann's two-toed sloth were both listed as Appendix II species by the organization, which has 184 countries and the European Union as members. This will require any country that sees sloths being bought or sold within its borders to provide studies and documentation that prove that the sale won't impact the species' conservation. 

According to the delegates from Brazil, Costa Rica, and Panama, who proposed the regulations, wildlife traffickers have been taking these sloths from their natural habitats to be used in tourist attractions around Central and South America, giving visitors the chance to have their picture taken with them, while baby sloths are taken from their mothers and sold illegally to tourists to take home as exotic pets. 

"Demand for sloth species has increased in recent years, particularly for live animals taken from the wild and destined for the pet trade," Nádia de Moraes-Barros, the scientific coordinator for Freeland Brasil, an NGO that fights wildlife trafficking, told Mongabay. 

Regulations like these are essential to protecting wildlife such as sloths. Without them, poachers can hunt these species and drastically reduce their numbers in the wild, while putting the surviving members of the species into captivity or situations where they're not properly or adequately cared for. On top of that, the transit to their new homes is often incredibly stressful and can result in death or the spread of disease.

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The new regulations will take effect within the next 60 days. Sloths weren't the only winners at the summit; more than 80 species of animals gained new protections under proposed legislation, as officials hope to slow the illegal trafficking of wild animals. Officials from the Sloth Institute Costa Rica celebrated the new regulations as "an historic win for the sloths," per Mongabay.

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