Zoos for what?

Costa Rica is a small country in Central America; a single country in this world armed to the teeth, which has no army and has an abundant biodiversity. Costa Rica was important weeks ago, when the country showed that it is able to compete in the World Cup of Football equals with the big teams on the planet.

Costa Rica also excels in the care and treatment of animals, especially with its biodiversity. The country abolished zoos. The animals that existed prisoners were released in their natural habitat, and when it was not possible to grant freedom, the animals were allocated to the Sanctuaries of organizations that take care of them without exploiting them, as zoos do worldwide.

Each day more information is published on social networks, which the mainstream press and televised hides, about violence and abuse of animals in Zoos. In São Paulo, constant complaints succeed of abuse, deaths and poor facilities, and the public refuses to visit zoos, not to give a bad example to their children to see animals in a deplorable state, behind bars, fully depressed, and not represent their original species.

In Brazil we cannot do what Costa Rica did. Closing zoos, release some animals and transfer the others to sanctuaries. There are no sufficient sanctuaries and their natural habitat is not safe so they can be reintroduced –  there are no safe areas to release this immense slave population. However, there is a way out. We can give a different order to Zoos and convert them into centers of Rescue and Maintenance of our native species, which desperately need a proper place to be held until a part can be safely reintroduced in our forests. The Centers Shelters that IBAMA has in the country, better known by the name Cetas, are overcrowded and many of them turn into a huge graveyard for animals captured from drug traffickers and traders of these species.

Converting Zoos in Rescue centers, ending the public visitation and the import of species from other countries, it the natural solution to solve the drama of our Biodiversity, the world’s greatest one that lives a giant environmental disaster, without the support of public and private authorities, which do not care for the fate and the lives of innocent beings, which human greed turned into prisoners scheduled to die.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International