"When an animal dies here, they give it to the others"

Havana/The animals of the National Zoological Park, in Havana, are dying, mainly hunger. Tells it 14ymedio An employee of the place, while teaching the cages of some animals, rickety. In one of them, a lion, with tired breathing, ignores the visitor while he lies with work on his hind rooms, marking all the bones.

“Flesh? They don’t see them a long time ago. Waste’s waste, it’s what they bring them, and there are not.” And he explains: “We have a contract with the slaughterhouses, and they sell us the waste. The heads of the cows, the legs, the panzas, the lungs, and that is what are given to the animals.” Another power supply occurs when “an animal dies here in”, in which case they give it to others. Nearby, a space is striking where the garbage alternates with remains of dead animals.

Before, the man continues, it was something else. “Every week up to 20 horses were killed, but there is no fuel to look for horses or money to buy it.” The situation is evident, even if the worker says nothing. But he says, with all his lyrics: “These animals are spending a terrible situation. We are in very bad conditions. They spend up to two days without eating.”

Gravity is such that some species have been lost. “There is no way to recover them,” he says resigned, “unless Namibia makes a donation again, and that will never happen.” The worker refers to agreement signed Cuba With the African country in 2012, through which they sent to the National Zoo a total of 146 animals, of 23 species, in an operation that the ruling called Ark of Noah II. “The greatest donation of animals that a country has made to Cuba throughout its history,” defined the official press in those days. The employee says: “There are already very few of which they brought.”

On the other hand, lions, zebras, rhinos and other animals in Africa, the species that are most reason for a zoo, cannot be visited during the National Zoo in Havana. The bus that travels the Safari area, the receptionist says to each client who approaches the box office this Thursday, is out of service almost every day. “They are trying to ensure Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but more Saturday and Sunday, for the fuel problem,” explains the woman. “Only birds, some carnivores and primates are available.”

Birds are in a somewhat better situation, although they do not house a great variety. The zoo has a bird center that allows raising. “Most of these species eat feed, some eat fruits,” explains a veterinarian while walking between tucanes, flamenco or phaisanes. To the birds that feed on protein, yes, they are not doing so well. “We had to release a coconut, there was only one, because he ate fish,” says the doctor.

If there is a salvable aspect of this newspaper’s visit to the enclosure is the cleaning of animals and cages. One of the cleaners explained to visitors how animals move from one cabin to another when they have to clean in which they are normally.

“It is true that all the time they see workers by chapter, cleaning with water and broom,” observes a habanera that took his son this Thursday and was disappointed in the services and the appearance of the animals. “Obviously the poor are famous, declined, looking for the few pieces of shadow they have.”

To hide the shortage of species, they distribute the specimens. Thus the babouins, for example, repeated in four or five cages.

As for the rest of the services, they have improved slightly compared to previous years. The coffee shops, which were under repair, have been managed, for three days, by MSMEs. For sale, “the usual,” says a visitor. Beer, soft drinks, pizza, bread with ham, dog. Despite the deafening noise that leave the speakers in those establishments, with music distributing At full volume, it is in that area where park visitors are concentrated.

The next most frequented area is the Children’s Park and the ponies and horses. The lake where the boats are rented has less influx. The zoo price -200 pesos price includes one of those recreational services.

Turning the entire park, without further remedy, is bleak. Many of the cages and land, otherwise nestled in a paradisiac field, in Boyeros, are empty. The footprints of the lost species and that will not return.