Workers put together Benito the giraffe for transport at the city-run Central Park Zoo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Sunday. After a marketing campaign by environmentalists, Benito left Mexico’s northern border and its excessive climate circumstances Sunday evening and headed for a conservation park in central Mexico.
Christian Chavez/AP
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Christian Chavez/AP
Workers put together Benito the giraffe for transport at the city-run Central Park Zoo in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Sunday. After a marketing campaign by environmentalists, Benito left Mexico’s northern border and its excessive climate circumstances Sunday evening and headed for a conservation park in central Mexico.
Christian Chavez/AP
A four-year-old giraffe named Benito arrived Tuesday at his new home in a giant animal park in central Mexico. Now begins the hard part for the gangly post-adolescent: fitting in with the crowd of seven giraffes in his new neighborhood.
The 7.5-acre (3-hectare) enclosure at the Africam Safari park in central Puebla state already holds seven giraffes, together with three females.
Benito, who was transferred following stress from animal advocates, has spent the final yr completely alone at a dusty metropolis park in the northern border metropolis of Ciudad Juarez. As he enters maturity, as with many species, he could should shortly develop some social abilities.
He at present is being held in a tall-roofed medical analysis room at the park, after his 2,000 kilometer (1,200 mile) journey from Ciudad Juarez in a crate on the again of a flat-bed truck. The park desires to maneuver him out to satisfy the remainder of the herd as quickly as potential, presumably inside a couple of days.
“He has been alone for a long time, and it is going to take us a few days to introduce him to the rest of the herd,” stated Frank Carlos Camacho, the director of the Africam Safari park. “But even so, we believe this is a very stable herd and that they will accept him.”
“It all depends on Benito, how he interacts with the herd,” he added.
Benito was seen on video sniffing round his new home and accepting a carrot from a park workers member Tuesday.
His new environment are a radical change.
In Ciudad Juarez, throughout the border from El Paso, Texas, Benito had little to do in his half-acre (0.2 hectare) enclosure; he ate a lot of alfalfa, a fodder normally given to cows.
In the border space’s blazing scorching summer season, Benito had little shade, Photos confirmed him crouching to suit below a small, round shade cover. In the winter, ice typically shaped in his enclosure’s pond. There had been few bushes for him to munch on.
At the Africam park, Benito will begin consuming leaves from the acacia tree, one in every of the favourite meals of giraffes in their native habitat in Africa.
“Benito is going to be introduced to foods that are new to him, which are the ones his cousins in Africa eat,” stated Camacho. “Even though Benito is not familiar with them, he’s going to like them.”
Giraffes attain sexual maturity round 4 years — Benito’s age, when many males separate from the herd and go in search of a mate — and might stay to round 25.
“I am very pleased that Benito will be the next stud at Africam,” Camacho stated.
The journey to the Africam Safari park, which began late Sunday, took round 30 hours, lower than initially anticipated. The specially-designed crate Benito was carried in was accompanied by a convoy of police, National Guard and press autos.
His switch was achieved following a marketing campaign by animal rights activists in Ciudad Juarez, the place temperatures reached as little as 39 levels F (four levels C) Sunday. They stated the winter chilly and summer season solar, the small enclosure, eating regimen and solitude simply weren’t truthful for Benito.
Ana Félix, one in every of the leaders of the motion to get Benito a new home, stated Benito’s transfer was a victory that “we are going to continue celebrating for the next few days.”
But Félix notes that the job of animal activists is not over: She desires to win a new home for Ely, an aged former circus elephant held largely alone at a cement-ringed Mexico City zoo enclosure. The animal’s unusual, repetitive behaviors and downcast demeanor have earned earned her the casual title of ‘the saddest elephant in the world.’
“We’re going for Ely,” Félix stated. “Let’s support the activists, so that Ely can also get out of the confinement she is in now.”
Despite all his difficulties, Benito gained many individuals’s hearts in Ciudad Juarez.
“We’re a little sad that he’s leaving. but it also gives us great pleasure … The weather conditions are not suitable for him,” stated Flor Ortega, a 23-year-old who stated she had spent her total life visiting Modesto, one other giraffe who was at the zoo for twenty years earlier than dying in 2022. Benito arrived there final May.
Benito initially got here from a zoo in the rather more temperate local weather of Sinaloa, a state on Mexico’s northern Pacific coast. Benito could not stick with the two different giraffes there as a result of they had been a couple, and zookeepers feared the male would change into territorial and assault the youthful Benito. So he was donated to Ciudad Juarez.
At the Africam Safari park, the giraffes stay in a a lot bigger area that extra intently resembles their pure habitat. Visitors journey by the park in all-terrain autos to watch animals as in the event that they had been on safari.
At his new home, it is going to be virtually like life will start once more for him, Camacho stated. “He’s ready to be a giraffe,” he stated. “He will reproduce soon, and contribute to the conservation of this wonderful species.”