The stage at the 26th Avenue Zoo in Havana, one year after the reopened its doors after the closure forced by the covid-19 pandemicIt’s more depressing than ever. Malnourished animals, without water, with their habitats full of dirt and excrement are the general trend, as he testified this Tuesday 14ymedio.
“The only thing that grows here are African snails,” a young man who was visiting with his partner sneeringly summed up when he saw the exemplary numbers of this plague that arrived in Cuba a few years ago.
The conditions of the place, which in recent days have once again been denounced in social networks, have definitely earned him a bad reputation. “There are very few people, very few children, despite the fact that it is a school break week,” said another woman, who also complained about the high prices of food at the kiosks. With ease, people spend 700 pesos “on nonsense.” Most only manage to buy a frozen fruit.
Skinny and barely moving, the leopard moaned in his den, which had no water. The skin of lions, which used to attract visitors more easily, is full of pustules
Despite the fact that there is a notice at the entrance of the zoo that it is out of service, the train works, although a attendant travels on board who gets out to push it when it runs out of fuel. Neither do children’s rides or electric cars work well, which barely run with their flat tires, covered in canvas to hide the deterioration of the tire.
Skinny and barely moving, the leopard moaned in his den, which had no water. The skin of lions, which used to attract visitors more easily, is full of pustules and bruises. All of them, just like antelopes, with marked ribs and tired eyes. “The only ones that seem to be well fed are the monkeys, because you can see that there are plenty of plantains and it’s the cheapest,” said another visitor.
The area of the bear has been infested by colonies of the giant African snail, an invasive species that raised alerts on the island for being a potential risk to human health, since they carry parasites that can cause diseases such as meningoencephalitis and abdominal angiostrongyliasis. Cuba faced an outbreak of this dangerous mollusk between 2018 and 2019but the work to eradicate it was cut short in 2020 with the arrival of the pandemic.
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