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

[Citrus]

1. If only...

I have serious reservations about this new "nature reserve". All too often they're just feel-good changes that actually do little or nothing for the beings trapped in the madness.

If all the zoos, aquaria and other captive animal sites would close and rehab the animals back to the wild, humans would be on a better path. (The vast majority of captives can be rehabbed back to the wild and the few who can't, could certainly be afforded massive, natural habitats and decent care without being objectified.)