Pubdate: Wed, 31 Mar 2010
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A11
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Simon Romero
Note: Jenny Carolina Gonzalez contributed reporting from Bogota, Colombia.

THROUGH CAGE BARS, AN EXOTIC PEEK INTO DRUG WARS

CALI, Colombia - Of all the animals that come to die under Ana Julia 
Torres's saman trees, the ocelots are among the most numerous. There 
are eight of them here, seized from the estate of a murdered cocaine 
trafficker, who apparently collected them in the belief that any 
self-respecting drug lord should always have eight ocelots in his dominion.

Ms. Torres's sanctuary houses hundreds of animals rescued largely 
from drug traffickers and paramilitary warlords, as well as from 
circuses and animal-smuggling rings, offering a strange window into 
the excesses and brutalities carried out in this country's endless drug wars.

Ms. Torres looks after Dany, a Bengal tiger whose caretakers, 
employed by a paramilitary commander, said that he used to eat the 
flesh of death-squad victims; a lethargic African lion that had been 
fed a steady diet of illicit narcotics by its owner; and the ocelots 
that belonged to a drug lord with the nom-de-guerre Jabon, or Soap.

"Some of the cruelties I've seen make me ashamed to be a human 
being," said Ms. Torres, 50, a school principal and animal-rights 
advocate who initially opened the sanctuary 16 years ago for animals, 
including a now deceased elephant, that had been discarded by 
traveling circuses around Colombia.

The creatures here, some 800 in all, range from the tiny kinkajou, a 
nocturnal mammal similar to a ferret found in Colombia's rain 
forests, to baboons born across the Atlantic in Africa. Many of the 
former circus animals, including an old chimpanzee named Yoko, still 
find repose at Villa Lorena, as Ms. Torres's sanctuary is called. 
Other animals, like a king vulture and a pygmy marmoset, one of the 
world's smallest monkeys, were rescued in raids on wildlife smugglers 
who seek to profit from Colombia's biodiversity.

But some of the most striking animals at Villa Lorena, located up a 
dirt road in the slum of Floralia, are the great cats that once 
belonged in the private zoos of drug traffickers, who still seem to 
find inspiration in the example of the dead cocaine baron Pablo Escobar.

Indeed, descendants of the hippos once owned by Mr. Escobar still 
roam the grounds of Hacienda Napoles, his once luxurious retreat, 
where he amassed a private collection of exotic species, including 
rhinoceroses and kangaroos.

Ms. Torres's sanctuary surpasses Mr. Escobar's menagerie in its 
diversity. About 500 iguanas roam its trees and pathways near corrals 
for peccaries, flamingos, mountain goats and peacocks. Cages house 
toucans and spider monkeys. Ms. Torres closes the sanctuary to all 
but a handful of visitors.

"The animals here are not meant to be exhibited," she said before 
leaning through cage bars to embrace and kiss on the lips a roaring 
lion named Jupiter, who was recovered from a circus where he had 
suffered from malnutrition. "They need to be protected, and have a 
right to live in peace."

Some of the animals under her care found anything but peace before 
arriving at Villa Lorena. Several years ago, she nursed back to 
health a spider monkey called Yeyo, found by the police in a puddle 
of his own blood after being beaten by its owner. While Yeyo lost an 
eye from the abuse, he lived quietly at Villa Lorena until his death, she said.

Then there is the lion named Rumbero, rescued from a drug trafficker 
near the city of Manizales. Rumbero's eyes have an empty, glazed 
look. Ms. Torres said he was forced to consume marijuana, ecstasy and 
other substances at bacchanals in Colombia's backlands.

At almost every turn at Villa Lorena, animals display indignities 
suffered at the hands of man. A caiman with a severed limb stretches 
under the tropical sun. A macaw with a sawed-off beak flutters in its 
cage. Luis, a cougar who once belonged to a drug trafficker, limps 
around his cage, the result of having a front leg cut off.

Ms. Torres speaks of each case with passion, somewhere between 
outrage and desperation, bringing to mind the episode in Nietzsche's 
life when he broke into tears and threw his arms around a horse on 
the streets of Turin while attempting to save it from a coachman's whipping.

"We've received horses here, too, including one that a man in Cali 
tried to burn alive after dousing it with gasoline," she said, 
motioning to Villa Lorena's burial ground near the chimpanzee's cage, 
where workmen bury all the animals that die at the sanctuary. "It 
didn't make it."

For others in animal-rights circles here, Ms. Torres's sanctuary 
raises issues that are both philosophical and practical. "Animals are 
not like human beings, who can adjust to being in a wheelchair," said 
Jorge Gardeazabal, a veterinary surgeon at Cali's zoo.

Dr. Gardeazabal, citing the example of an ocelot with a severed leg, 
said that he preferred euthanasia in such cases, since the ocelot 
would be unable to carry out its genetic instinct to flee with 
quickness when it sensed fear. Still, he said he supported Ms. 
Torres's sanctuary. "But it's an activity that should be regulated by 
the authorities," he said, to ensure the well-being of the animals 
and those who work with them.

While Ms. Torres receives help from Cali's environmental police, who 
deliver rescued animals to her doorstep, she shuns government 
financing and other involvement with the authorities. She relies, 
instead, on private donations and food given to the sanctuary by 
grocery stores.

Eliecer Zorrilla, an official with Cali's environmental police, said 
the hands of law enforcement were largely tied when it came to 
limiting the traffic in exotic animals, even those that were abused 
and ended up at Villa Lorena. Colombian law does not include prison 
terms for people found mistreating animals or owning a rare species, he said.

Mr. Zorrilla added that his officers could seize wild animals from 
their owners only when they were in the process of being transported 
or traded. "We have no idea how many other wild animals, from this 
continent or others, are being mistreated in captivity," he said.

In an ironic twist, man's clash with nature is also what sustains the 
animals in Villa Lorena. Roadkill, largely in the form of horses hit 
by cars, provides much of the meat for Ms. Torres's carnivores. 
Workmen butcher the donated horse meat and toss it into cages, where 
it is quickly consumed.

Ms. Torres said that it took time for Dany, the man-eating Bengal 
tiger, to get used to his new diet. He roared with startling vigor 
one recent afternoon when it came time to eat; steel bars separated 
him from the laborer throwing him raw flesh. "Dany's one of the few 
animals here that I cannot embrace," said Ms. Torres. "At least not yet."
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