Buenos Aires zoo to close after 140 years: 'Captivity is degrading'

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Buenos Aires zoo to close after 140 years: 'Captivity is degrading'

• 2,500 animals will be moved to nature reserves in Argentina, mayor said
• Zoo will become educational ecopark and refuge for trafficked animals

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Thursday 23 June 2016 19.51 BST

Buenos Aires has announced plans to close down its 140-year-old zoo, arguing that keeping wild animals in captivity and on display is degrading.

Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta said that the zoo’s 2,500 animals will be gradually moved to nature reserves in Argentina which can provide a more suitable environment. The 44-acre zoo in the Palermo neighbourhood will become an ecopark when it is reopened later this year.

“This situation of captivity is degrading for the animals, it’s not the way to take care of them,” said Rodríguez, at a ceremony on Thursday.

The new ecopark will be “a place where children can learn how to take care of and relate with the different species”, the mayor said. “What we have to value is the animals. The way they live here is definitely not the way to do that.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/23/buenos-aires-zoo-close-animals-captivity-argentina