Benito the giraffe makes a long journey to better climate in central Mexico
Benito the Giraffe was being moved to central Mexico after a campaign by environmentalists to move him away from northern Mexico with its brutally hot summers and cold winters.
CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — After a campaign by environmentalists, Benito the giraffe left Mexico’s northern border and its extreme weather conditions Sunday night and headed for a conservation park in central Mexico, where the climate is more akin to his natural habitat and already a home to other giraffes.
Environmental groups had voiced strong complaints about conditions faced by Benito at the city-run Central Park zoo in Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, where weather in the summer is brutally hot and temperatures plunge during the winter.
A crane carefully lifted a container holding the giraffe onto a truck while city dwellers in love with the animal said a bittersweet goodbye. Some activists shouted, “We love you, Benito.”
A transport crate containing Benito the giraffe is lifted Sunday during its transfer from Ciudad Juárez.Herika Martinez / AFP - Getty Images“We’re a little sad that he’s leaving. but it also gives us great pleasure. ... The weather conditions are not suitable for him,” said Flor Ortega, a 23-year-old who said she had spent her entire life visiting Modesto the giraffe, which was at the zoo for two decades before dying in 2022, and then Benito, which arrived last May.
The transfer could not have come at a better time, just when a new cold front was about to hit the area.
Rating: 5