Dr. Ivonne Cassaigne Visits The Santiago Zoo

August, 2006

I was not about to miss this! I bought tickets to fly down to meet everyone. David Flores of the Gringo Gazette arranged a room for me at Club Cabo, a modest motel on the highway towards Santiago. It was a convenient location to catch the bus north. I met Ivonne, Raul, and Dr. Jorge Bravo in Ivonne's hotel lobby on Friday night. Raul Ramirez is an energetic, dedicated man who never lost patience with Vicky and her persistant calls to arrange all of this. Dr. Bravo is a vet who works with the Humane Society in San Jose Del Cabo. We all agreed to meet at the zoo in the morning. Raul & Dr. Bravo left and Ivonne & I had dinner together.

I was totally enchanted by Ivonne. She spoke excellent English, was funny, caring and 110% dedicated to doing whatever she could to help the animals and support improvement of the zoo. Vicky could not have found a better person for us.

I brought Ivonne up to date about what we had been doing and while we wanted to move the lion & tiger, I also acknowledged the very real possibility that, if we DID succeed in moving them, there was nothing to prevent the arrival of more big cats in the future. The uncontrolled breeding of exotic animals is extremely prevelant in Mexico. If Santiago could not take care of the large cats they have now, and we take them away, what is to stop them from acquiring more and treating them as poorly? The answer, of course, was "nothing".

My ride from Cabo San Lucas to Santiago the next morning was provided by Tamara, the reporter from The Gringo Gazette. ========>

Raul and Ivonne arrived about 20 minutes ahead of us. Raul introduced me to Juan Carlos Gonzales, the first full-time employee the zoo has ever had. He had been hired about 3 months prior (coincidentally not long after another article came out in a Mexican newspaper about our efforts). Later I learned that Raul was aware that there was a new caretaker, but knew nothing about him or what he was doing.

Juan Carlos is educated in what would be our equivalent of perhaps Animal Husbandry, with an emphasis in "production" (such as for the beef industry). He has knowledge of domestic animal nutrition and basic health care. This was confirmed by a long discussion with Ivonne.



Pictured are Dr. Jorge Bravo, Dr. Ivonne Cassaigne and Juan Carlos Gonzales

Juan Carlos had moved Leo out of his little cage into a slightly larger one vacated by the bear. Juan Carlos said that when he was hired, Leo was limping on the foot with the injury, and looked in poor health. He has been feeding both cats horse meat (no more frozen chicken!), giving him vitamins, putting medicine on his injury and Leo is doing much better now. In fact, Leo was chomping on a big meaty bone while I was there. He looked so much happier & healthier that any of the other times I saw him.


Juan Carlos gave us a tour, showed us the bags of animal feed, and the new enclosure under construction for the python (boa?). The zoo gives him a monthly budget of approximately $6,000 (US). His dream for the zoo is to get the permits necessary to make it legal, then raise money for the larger enclosures. He candidly said that if the government of Santiago was given a donation right now for the zoo, he would still receive just the budgeted amount. In other words, the zoo would not get the money. And he personally does not want to be responsible for taking donations. So nothing can happen until a foundation is in place.

I left the zoo "cautiously optimistic" of the new developments. One part of me was disappointed at the reality that they would never give up those cats, but thrilled that Leo was better and that the Santiago munincipality was finally taking a measure of responsibility.

Later that afternoon, back at Ivonne's hotel, we discussed the day's findings. Raul talked of setting up a conservancy similar to what had been done with the Turtle efforts. Ivonne was going to write up a list of recommendations. Here is a copy of it.
As much as I would have liked to get the lion & tiger out of there, the reality is that there is no way to force them to give up animals if they do not want to let them go. But the fact that they are now coming around to acknowledging responsibility is a huge step in the name of progress. And, unfortunately the forecast of more big cats has already come true. The zoo now has come into possession of three lion cubs that were confiscated from an apartment in Cabo San Lucas. One cub, very sickly, died in Dr. Bravo's arms when he went to treat it. Dr. Bravo has been given permission to neuter them, and may have already done so at this writing.

Saturday night Ivonne & I had dinner with two more veterinarians, husband & wife team of Dr. Andreas Yeechig and Dra. Samantha Acosta.



They own a vet clinic at the base of The Pedregal, a very exclusive gated community on the cliffs overlooking Cabo San Lucas. They took us on a tour of The Pedregal. I have seen many high dollar homes before, but the dramatic cliff-hugging architecture with End of the Earth views of both the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez left us drop-jawed. I completely forgot to take pictures.

Sunday morning I took the bus to San Jose Del Cabo to meet with Ivonne again. She was busy writing up her report before her flight out that afternoon. She vowed that she was going to remain a part of this project, not merely coming in, rendering an opinion, and going home. She has lived up to that promise….we are in touch every week.

Breaking News

Ivonne and another vet, Dr. Ole, an orthopedic surgeon... have booked their flights into Los Cabos to operate on Leo. They are donating their services, but their travel costs are being paid for by Sr. Oscar Dacarett. This will take place February 1-3.

Stay tuned!

After Three Years, FINALLY Some Progress!

July 2005

The first three years were a series of frustrations. We could not find people to trust, we could not find who was actually in charge of the facility. Every government official we could talk to pointed to another…if they would take our calls at all, (which they usually didn't).

That began to change once we started talking to Sr. Dacarett in 2005. He took our calls, (and even returned them!) listened to us, asked for the history of our involvement and paper work. About the same time we were introduced to Raul Ramirez, Director of Ecology, by reporter Ezequiel Lizalde of the Tribuna de Los Cabos. Sr. Ramirez was very receptive also. At last…real dialogue with people who cared!

When I first got involved, the focus was building new, larger enclosures for the animals. However, the whole operation was virtually unlicensed and un-permitted. There was no trustworthy entity in place that could be held accountable for the money and materials we were bringing in and nothing was accomplished. We switched our goal to getting the two large cats out of there. WAO, in San Antonio was willing to receive them, if permits could be secured.

Once our dialogue with Sr. Dacarett began, we wanted to get a wildlife veterinarian's opinion of the current health status of the lion & tiger and the enclosure requirements necessary in order for them to stay. He agreed to let us bring in a vet.

There are veterinarians in Los Cabos, but no one with wildlife expertise, and we wanted to get an expert in there to assess the conditions and make recommendations. After numerous phone calls, a Google search and more phones calls, Vicky found Dr. Ivonne Cassaigne of Mexico City, a wildlife specialist with the National University of Mexico. She agreed to come to Santiago without charging us for her time. We would have to cover her travel expenses and Sr. Oscar Dacarett covered her hotel. The visit was set for August 12th, 2006.

To say we were excited by this monumental step is an understatement!

It Began With A Whimper

The history of my involvement with the Santiago Zoo dates back to my first visit on December 26th, 2001. When we were planning our itinerary, my traveling companion said he wanted to stop at the zoo. He had been there in 1985. I firmly said I had no interest in going to a village zoo. I knew I would see animals in horrid conditions. Each time the subject surfaced, I said no. I was still refusing to go in as I sat in the truck in the Santiago Zoo parking lot....and again as I was walking through the gates.

Ok....I acknowledged that the grounds were tidy..."See, he said...it's not that bad". Then, I saw the lion.


He was pacing in his small cage, and he looked me in the eye and whimpered. I burst into tears and ran back to the truck. I didn't know there was also a tiger and a bear until the film was developed of the pictures he took after I had returned to the truck. (I was so upset about the lion, he wasn't about to tell me there was also a tiger and bear.)

When I came home, I went on the Baja discussion boards and began a campaign to help "Leo" and the zoo. Over the years the project has had its ups & downs. I found two people to help me, and they have helped to keep this project alive. First I met Robin, who had successfully moved a lion out of Mexico a few years ago and his friend Vicky. Robin also saw an Animal Planet episode about a woman named Gloria out of Houston who had moved a lion out of Cancun to a sanctuary in San Antonio, Texas - Wild Animal Orphanage . Gloria helped a lot in communicating with the local government to establish exactly who was in charge of the zoo. There were only part-time employees and an honorary volunteer "President". There was no regular veterinary care.

• In 2003 Leo somehow broke a bone in his paw and it was sticking out. We contacted Animal Planet and had a commitment from one of their vets to come down to operate on him, but they kept cancelling on us, then stopped taking our calls. Click picture to enlarge.



• In January of 2004 Lic. Maribel Collins of the Tourism Dept. of the State of Baja California Sur announced that the state was giving the zoo $150,000 (pesos) for improvements. Where did the money go? No one knows....it did not go towards new enclosures for the animals.



• In April of 2004, we thought we were going to be successful in getting Leo moved to Texas. Jesus Corrall Gonzales, the Municipal Secretary of Tourism, Los Cabos, BCS wrote us a letter of intent to start the permit process to export him. Unfortunately, the permit was denied by Julio Cesar Peralta Gallegos of PROFEPA.



• The bear died in June of 2004 and that started to bring some unfavorable publicity to the zoo.

After the permit was denied, we were stalled and nothing happened for quite a while. Gloria had other animals in Cancun she was trying to help, and we were running out of ideas.

In July of 2005 I asked David Flores of the Gringo Gazette for help. I wondered if he could get an answer from the government about what improvements had been made since he published that announcement in 2004 about the 15o,000 pesos that the state supposedly gave to the zoo. I hardly expected them to give David an answer, but he was very instrumental in advancing our efforts, because the authorities told David that they had just appointed Oscar Dacarett to be in charge of the zoo. David gave us Oscar's telephone numbers. Vicky now had someone to call.

I would have given up long ago, for I do not speak Spanish, but Gloria and Vicky do. So Vicky went to work on Oscar. We were also supported by an article that came out in a local Mexican paper. At last....the locals were getting involved. When Hurricane Wilma hit Cancun, the sanctuary Gloria had been working on suffered a lot of damage. She no longer had the time to work with us, so it was left up to Vicky to keep the lines of communication open.