A Cartago court sentenced a man for illegally breeding dogs in a puppy mill. Most of the dogs were kept inside stacked cages or hanging crates for years.
Thousands of parrots, monkeys, iguanas, toucans, turtles and other rain forest animals are kept as exotic pets in Costa Rica, a practice putting some species at risk, according to experts.
In the meadow, four white-haired Shorthorn heifers peel off from the others, raising their heads at the same time in the same direction. Unsettling, when you know they are clones.
The Costa Rican Environment Ministry’s plans to revamp the country’s public zoos and turn them into cage-less bioparks came to a halt last week, when an administrative court granted zoo administrators Fundazoo another 10-year management contract.
Public zoos will remain open in Costa Rica for at least 10 more years following a court ruling last Friday. An administrative court ruled in favor of nonprofit group FUNDAZOO, which administers San José's Simón Bolívar Zoo and the Santa Ana Conservation Center, citing a contractual technicality that will allow the group to continue operating the zoos until 2024. The Environment Ministry, or MINAE, had said it would close both zoos in May.
