Discovery
Mendoza Zoo freezes bear move: Argentina’s last captive polar bear will remain in the country despite a petition by more than a half million people asking that it be moved to Canada.
The director of the Mendoza Zoo in western Argentina told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the 28-year-old bear is too old to safely be relocated.
Animal rights advocates say the bear, named Arturo, paces nervously in his concrete enclosure and they suggest the animal suffers from depression. They have campaigned to move the bear to a zoo in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which has welcomed the idea.
Even former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich has rallied to the cause.
“If you love animals the way I do, please sign the petition to help the Argentinian polar bear, Arturo,” Gingrich recently wrote on his Facebook page, where he posted a video clip in support of the move. “His current living situation is very sad, and he deserves to be saved.”
The petition on Change.org asking Argentine President Cristina Fernandez to Prince Albert of Monaco (center), with French archeologist, geologist and prehistorian Henri Delumley (left), is shown the skull of Tautavel man by the wife of Delumly, Marie-Antoinette, during a visit to the Caune de L’Arago for the 50th anniversary of the excavations at Tautavel on July 22. Tautavel Man (Homo erectus tautavelensis), is a proposed subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus, the 450,000-year-old fossil remains of whom were discovered in the
Arago Cave in Tautavel. (AFP)