Captive Rare Animals Keep Dying in Latin America Gabriela Gorbea - VICE News
go to original July 14, 2016

Unlocking the Cage follows animal rights lawyer Steven Wise in his unprecedented challenge to break down the legal wall that separates animals from humans. After thirty years of struggling with ineffective animal welfare laws, Steve and his legal team, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), are making history by filing the first lawsuits that seek to transform an animal from a thing with no rights to a person with legal protections. (Movieclips)

Public outrage over the recent deaths of an endangered gorilla in Mexico, a depressed polar bear in Argentina, and the shooting of two lions in Chile and a Jaguar in Brazil, has some animal activists hopeful that Latin America is developing a new consciousness about captivity.

"The recent loss of specimens is devastating, but it is also good to make people aware of all the damage caused by these institutions," Elliot Katz, founder of the animal rights organization In Defense of Animals, said of zoos.

... The latest blow to the image of zoos, and fuel to frenzied activity on social media, came last week with the death of an endangered western lowland gorilla in Mexico City's main zoo called Bantú. The 24-year-old male died of a heart attack on July 6 after being sedated in preparation for a transfer to a zoo in the city of Guadalajara where the plan was for him to mate. Autopsy photos released Sunday by Mexican newspaper El Universal showed Bantú decapitated with his limbs severed caused additional outrage on social media.

"The zoo deaths were all avoidable tragedies," said Dawes. "They reveal the expendable nature of animals in captive facilities."

Read the rest at VICE News

Related: Colombia Investigation Reveals Workings of Wildlife Traffickers (Insight Crime)

Related: Border Fences Aimed at Stopping Immigrants Are Killing Wildlife (TakePart)

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!