A skeleton of a lion is worth $ 10,000 and a rhino’s worths more than gold, which caused the reduction of more than 270 rhinos in the first six months of this year in South Africa. In Miami, Jungle Island, a private zoo – which houses some great apes – is near bankruptcy because it cannot pay a loan of 26 million dollars to the city of Miami, which allowed the zoo to build the park on Watson Island, in Biscayne Bay. The city refuses to forgive the debt and give more land to build a hotel and a shopping mall – the owner of the zoo, Bern Levine, says these would make the facilities profitable. In the past, Bern Levine was notorious in the trade and establishment of exotic animals, especially primates.

In Miami public Zoo, an elephant who lived there since he was a baby died at only 32 years old from unknown causes. This elephant, named Machito, was of a species that the zoo used to promote as emblematic of its collection of animals and has a life expectancy of more than 60 years.

The British Lion Aid organization, which defends the lions, accuses Asian mafia of trade of bones of lions, to which are attributed medicinal powers, like tiger’s bones. Several environmental groups fear that the business of the bones can be extended to other species of African and Asian cats, which are also in imminent danger of extinction.

There are fewer than 5,000 lions in the wild in Africa; with this new threat, it is possible that the species reaches extinction in the wild in the next decade.

The mountain gorillas, now submitted to the crossfire of civil war that never ends in DR Congo, have fled from their traditional area in the Virunga Mountains for a more impenetrable area, while the employees of the park that cared for them were taken out from the National Park so they would not become victims of the war. The Ecological Tourism which had been built around the remaining group of gorillas is threatened, possible forever. This is humans destroying everything around them that can be converted to business, money and power!

Dr. Pedro Ynterian, President,
GAP Project International