Years after Argentina shut a notorious zoo, the stranded animals are finally being rescued

LUJAN, Argentina (AP) — Lions, tigers and bears that managed to survive in deplorable conditions at a now-shuttered zoo on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, paced in their claustrophobic cages Thursday, waiting their turn to receive emergency veterinary care for the first time in years.

The 62 big cats and two brown bears were being assessed and treated before their possible transfer to vast wildlife reserves abroad – one of the largest and most difficult yet after a recent agreement between Argentina and an international animal protection organization.

In 2020, Argentine authorities closed the Lujan Zoo – famous for allowing visitors to handle and pose for photos with tigers and lions – due to growing security concerns.

But the plight of captive cats has only gotten worse. For the past five years, the animals have been supported by a few loyal zookeepers who, despite losing their jobs at Lujan, have taken it upon themselves to feed and care for the lions and tigers left behind.

Most did not succeed.

When Four Paws, an international animal welfare organization, first visited the zoo in 2023, keepers counted 112 lions and tigers, down from the more than 200 big cats that were reportedly housed at the zoo when it closed.

Two years later, nearly half of the animals had died from illnesses due to poor nutrition, injuries from fighting with animals they would never have encountered in the wild, infections due to lack of medical care, and organ failure due to the stress of living in such cramped conditions.

“It was really shocking,” said Luciana D’Abramo, the organization’s program manager, pointing to a 10-by-10-foot cage filled with seven female lions. “Overcrowded, to put it mildly.”

Next door, two Asian tigers shared a small cage with two African lions — a “social composition you would never find in the wild,” D’Abramo said. “There’s a lot of hostility and fighting.”

A single lion typically occupies 10,000 square meters at Four Paws sanctuaries around the world.

After reaching an agreement with the Argentine government earlier this year, Four Paws last month assumed responsibility for the surviving wildlife in Lujan.

The memorandum of understanding involved Argentina pledging to end the sale and private ownership of exotic felines in the large South American country, where enforcement efforts often fail in 23 provinces that have their own rules and regulations.

Although the Vienna-based organization has previously evacuated starving tigers from Syria’s civil war, abandoned bears and hyenas from the war-ravaged Iraqi city of Mosul and neglected lion cubs from the besieged Gaza Strip, it has never rescued such large numbers of big cats before.

“Here, the number of animals and the conditions in which they are kept make the challenge much greater,” said Dr. Amir Khalil, the veterinarian who leads the group’s emergency mission. “This is one of our greatest missions…not only in Argentina or Latin America, but throughout the world.”

On Thursday, veterinarians and experts from the organization were rushing into the abandoned zoo to assess the animals one by one. Most had not been vaccinated, sterilized or microchipped for identification.

The team transported sedated lions and tigers to operating tables, giving them nutrients, antibiotics and doses of painkillers via intravenous drip.

Quick exams often turned into emergency surgeries. One tiger was treated for a bleeding gash on its tail last week, another for a vaginal tumor on Thursday. Several tigers and lions required root canal treatments to repair infected molars that had been broken on the cage’s steel bars.

Others received treatment for claws that had grown inward from walking too much on unnatural plank floors in the spartan enclosures.

After evaluating each animal in the coming weeks, Four Paws will arrange for their transfer to larger natural homes around the world.

Some Argentine zookeepers who have spent decades feeding and caring for the big cats say they are happy to see Four Paws improving conditions. But there was also a sense of nostalgia for the way things used to be.

“It was a very popular place…I saw people crying because they could touch a lion or feed a tiger with a bottle,” said Alberto Díaz, who spent 27 years working with the wild cats at Lujan Zoo, overseeing hands-on experiences for countless tourists.

“Time changes, laws change and you have to adapt or get left behind.”