Buenos Aires zoo to close after 140 years
‘Captivity is degrading’
Buenos Aires has announced plans to close down its 140-year-old zoo, arguing
that keeping wild animals in captivity and on display is degrading.
Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said that the zoo’s 2,500 animals will be
gradually moved to nature reserves in Argentina which can provide a more
suitable environment. The 44-acre zoo in the Palermo neighbourhood will become
an ecopark when it is reopened later this year.
“This situation of captivity is degrading for the animals, it’s not the way to
take care of them,” said Rodríguez, at a ceremony on Thursday.The new ecopark
will be “a place where children can learn how to take care of and relate with
the different species”, the mayor said. “What we have to value is the animals.
The way they live here is definitely not the way to do that.”
Some of the zoo’s bird species will be released in the Reserva Ecológica, a
riverside ecological reserve covering 864 acres in Buenos Aires. Older animals
and those too infirm to be moved will remain at the current site.
The new ecopark will also provide refuge and rehabilitation for animals rescued
from illegal trafficking, city officials said.Buenos Aires zoo was one of the
city’s main tourist attractions, but despite its popularity, the decaying zoo
had been running a loss for its private concessionaires.
It had also attracted bad publicity in recent years, particularly regarding the
desperate plight of its captive polar bears during the city’s oppressively hot
summers. The zoo’s last remaining polar bear, called Winner, died three and a
half years ago partly due to soaring temperatures and inadequate conditions at
the zoo.
“The most important thing is breaking with the model of captivity and
exhibition,” animal rights lawyer Gerardo Biglia, a long-time campaigner for the
closure of this city’s zoo, said in statements to the press.
“I think there is a change coming for which we are already prepared because kids
nowadays consider it obvious that it’s wrong for animals to be caged.”Among the
50 animals staying behind will be Sandra, an orangutan that madeinternational
headlines two years ago when a Buenos Aires court declared her “a non-human
person” deserving rights.
- Theguardian
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