From Zoo to Eco-Park: Profit Is Not the Goal Here, Protection Is

The zoo of Buenos Aires, Argentina, transformed, trading profits for conservation, to become an eco-park whose goals are to care for senior animals and educate people on human activity’s impact on the animal kingdom.

“We don’t have animals here for the purpose of being shown to the public…” explains Dolores Medina, Buenos Aires Eco-park’s coordinator of conservation and wildlife. “We work for the conservation of species but also to make people aware of how they are impacting animals.”

The zoo closed its doors in 2016, and in the following seven years, more than 1,000 animals were moved to sanctuaries worldwide. The eco-park – now home to “legacy animals,” those hard to relocate due to their old age – has become a nationally important centre for conservation. Its state-of-the-art animal hospital – once the zoo’s baboon house – welcomes injured wild animals from all over Argentina and houses the largest biobank in South America, holding in cryogenic suspension genetic material from 120 species. Other Argentinian zoos are being converted into eco-parks, like in Mendoza and Córdoba, while the zoo in Medellín, Colombia, is now a conservation park. Still open to visitors, the Buenos Aires Eco-park limits the numbers to 2,000 daily, focusing on its conservation and rescue centre operations.