Days ago Congressman Gustavo Petta visited us in GAP Sanctuary of Sorocaba. He was accompanied by Gabriel Bittencourt and his wife, who are close collaborators of our struggle for the rights of great apes and animals in general.

Gustavo Petta was President of Brazilian National Union of Students and is militating in Environmentalist Parliamentary Front in the Congress. He had the opportunity to meet our conservation work of several species of animals, both wild and exotic, and the tragedy that Brazil is due to the lack of suitable shelters to animals that environmental agencies confiscate in traffickers sites. We showed him the reality of Brazilian Zoos. Each week there is a complaint of abuse or accidents with the public.

At the same time they spend millions of taxes paid by the population to keep zoos – where animals, totally depressed and mentally disturbed, serve as a false fun to the poorest people of the country, which has no places suitable for leisure -, the animals who should be protected live a daily hell that leads to premature deaths.

Brazil needs to rethink its model of caring for the fauna. Thousands of animals of our biodiversity are in cages and small cubicles in the rescue centers of IBAMA, which do not support to care for all of them, while some zoos in major capitals, such as Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, spend millions bringing exotic animals from abroad and do not receive the Brazilian fauna, who need decent housing, to be reintroduced to their natural habitat.

Gustavo Petta was impressed with what he saw, we noticed in his eyes, in his attitudes, questions and reactions. He was an activist in the fight for student rights, as we were several decades ago. The strength of youth today have an awareness of engaging in animal causes, which our generation did not have, and this gives us hope that our struggle will now be well supported with initiatives of Brazilian Parliamentarians of all states. Gustavo Petta is now running for State Representative in the State of São Paulo, where the crisis in zoos becomes increasingly intense, some even being closed by their own Municipalities.

A great movement of this young force that arises today in every nation should be born in São Paulo and will spread throughout the country.

The innocent animals who suffer in the hands of humans who think only about exploit them need to have a united front of lawmakers and environmentalists to defend and support them. We know that Gustavo Petta will be one of the future leaders of this movement, as he was when he presided the largest organization of Brazilian students.

Dr. Pedro A. Ynterian

President, GAP Project International

Pictures of Gabriel Bittencourt, Gustavo Petta and Pedro Ynterian at Great Ape Sanctuary of Sorocaba