Buenos Aires stated that they have plans to close the zoo in the city. This zoo is already 140 years old but now they argue that keeping wild animals in cages and on display is degrading.
The mayor stated that the 2, 500 animals currently living in the zoo will be moved to nature reserves within Argentina to be able to provide a more suitable environment. The empty zoo of 44 acres will be turned into an eco-park in the Palermo neighbourhood later this year.
Keeping animals in captivity is degrading, it is not the right way to take care of animals.
In this new eco-park will offer the opportunity for children to learn to take care of different animals and how they can relate with the different species. The animals need be appreciated and keeping them in zoo is not the way to do that.
Some of the zoo’s bird species will be released in the Reserva Ecológica, an ecological reserve along the riverside covering over 864 acres in Buenos Aires. The older animals and the animals which cannot be moved will stay at the current site.
In the new eco-park there will also be space for refuge and rehabilitation for animals rescued from illegal trafficking.
The zoo in Buenos Aires was one of the main tourist attractions around. Even though the zoo was quite popular, they had been running a loss for their private concessionaires.
In the last years the zoo had also attracted some bad publicity because of bad circumstances for the captive polar bears during the hot summers. The last polar bear at Buenos Aires’ zoo was called Winner and died three and a half years ago because of the rising temperatures and bad conditions at the zoo.
In a statement to the press, animal rights lawyer Gerardo Biglia said that the most important thing is breaking the model of captivity and exhibition. Times are changing, kids nowadays already consider it wrong to keep animals in cages.
Among the 50 animals staying behind will be Sandra the orangutan. Sandra made the international headlines two years ago when the court in Buenos Aires decided to declare her a “non-human person” deserving rights.
The problem is that Sandra the orangutan is a hybrid mix of Borneo and Sumatra and does not socialize. Sandra and the other animals that remain in the zoo will no longer be exhibited in public.
