A girl, dressed as a bee, attends the parade for the centenary of the Chapultepec Zoo, in Mexico City, on Thursday, July 6, 2023. The zoo organizers invited visitors to dress up as their favorite animal. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
A girl, with a butterfly painted on her face, smiles during a parade for the centenary of the Chapultepec Zoo, in Mexico City, Thursday, July 6, 2023. Zoo organizers invited visitors to dress up as their animal. favorite. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Spectators watch the parade for the centenary of the Chapultepec Zoo, in Mexico City, Thursday, July 6, 2023. Zoo organizers invited visitors to dress up as their favorite animal. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Cloth giraffes dancing on stilts, a band of ‘tigers’ that played the drum or artistic costumes simulating endemic scorpions walked through the Chapultepec Forest, the main park in the Mexican capital and where the zoo is located, before the enthusiastic faces of the smaller and some claims.
“Zoo animals need more care and better habitats,” read a sign carried by Diana Godínez, a dentist who took advantage of the celebration to ask for more support for all species.
Fernando Gual Sill, director of the Chapultepec zoo, through which more than five million visitors pass each year, stated that the facilities have been transformed over time and are now “a center for the conservation of wildlife.” where endangered species are cared for.
One example is that a bank of genomic resources has been operating for more than a decade with 1,267 samples of semen, ovarian tissue and oocytes from 29 species. In 2021, the birth of a litter of Mexican wolves became a hopeful event.
In addition, Gual Sill recalled that the work of the zoo goes beyond the enclosure by supporting conservation work in different places.
But both this zoo and others in the country have been the subject of harsh controversy.
The one in the capital had to face criticism in 2022 about the treatment of certain animals when some publications showed unusually high numbers of deaths of some species.
And this year, the director of a zoo in southern Mexico, in the state of Guerrero, was dismissed after the detection of alleged irregularities in the handling of some animals, ranging from the sale and exchange of specimens for tools and supplies to the sacrifice of goats to feed center workers.
Apart from zoos, private collections of exotic animals or shelters that did not meet the minimum conditions for species from other continents have proliferated in Mexico. A year ago, the Mexican authorities agreed to evict some 200 animals, mostly African lions, jaguars and pumas, who were in a shelter in the southwest of the capital intervened by the police after reports of alleged animal abuse and serious deterioration of their property. the copies.
In parallel, activism in favor of animals has grown in the capital. Traditionally, there have been very active groups against bullfighting—even temporarily paralyzing it—but last month there was an unusual demonstration through the center of the city of hundreds of people in favor of legislators passing adequate laws for the protection animal, something to which the president himself was favorable.
FUENTE: Associated Press
