Belo Horizonte Zoo

Months ago we had criticized the initiative of the Belo Horizonte Zoo to import two young gorillas, born in a zoo from John Aspinall Foundation, in England – at a cost of over half a million dollars to put them together with a gorilla who had no good health due to inappropriate captivity conditions – and anticipated that all this media project could end in tragedy.

A few hours ago the tragedy happened. Idi Amin, who was already ill for months, and was taking anti-inflammatory and antibiotics, died possibly because of a cardiorespiratory arrest.

The zoo, as usual here and all over the world, affirmed that he was a senior primate and that his death was expected for his age. But Idi Amin died as all the great apes die in zoos: victim of the stress of the life they lead marked by public exhibition and for the lack of space they need to exercise and live healthily.

When the two young gorillas arrived from England, the zoo made a lot of marketing around it. It was told to press that British experts had spent weeks here studying the gorilla and the zoo to where the young gorillas would come. They had approved what they saw, without seeing anything, showing a lack of preparation and incompetence that is on the threshold of irresponsibility and crime.

That project could not succeed. Idi Amin, like all gorillas of precarious zoos, was sentenced to death in advance. His death was announced. The Director of the zoo and even City Hall did not realize the tragedy that about to happen.

They made a media show, thinking only in benefits they could get in an election year, and threw away the life of an extraordinary being, still young – the only one who lived in the country. A member of an endangered species, who would have lived for many more years in a sanctuary with no expose to visitor, was sacrificed in the name of human vanity.

IDI AMIN, REST IN PEACE!

The Dr. Peter Ynterian
President, GAP Project International