SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The only zoo in the Dominican Republic is providing a safe haven for confiscated illegal and smuggled animals as a government crackdown aimed at protecting exotic species gathers pace.Tucked inside a green oasis in the middle of the capital, Santo Domingo, are crocodiles, flamingos, and even tigers that officials have confiscated from people accused of illegally keeping them. The numbers are growing and threaten to overload the country’s lone zoo.“It’s a burden,” said Alfonso Ferreira, deputy director of the city’s National Zoological Park. “People have a predisposition to owning wild animals.”Dominican authorities seized 188 animals last year, compared with 30 in 2023, as the government tries to tackle the illegal ownership of certain species. It has also launched educational campaigns to raise awareness about their plight.
So far this year, officials have confiscated more than 8,900 species, although a majority of those were crickets and young fish to feed animals including seahorses.Commonly, flamingos are the most rescued animals, said Nelson García Marcano, head of the Caribbean nation’s Department of Wildlife Regulation and Control.Flamingos, which are protected, are often illegally taken from their natural habitat and sold to hotels, which use them as garden ornaments, he said. It’s a trend that individual homeowners have started to follow. “People like to copy what they find attractive and beautiful,” said Garcia Marcano, who decried the practice, noting people sometimes amputate a bird’s wings. “It’s a migratory animal,” he said. “It’s an animal that should be free.”
