Concerned residents spot massive lion roaming through city streets — here's how it wound up there

A dangerous animal was spotted roaming the streets near Mexico City, causing alarm among residents.

What's happening?

Excélsior, a news outlet in Mexico City, shared footage of the sighting on YouTube. 

In San Pedro Cholula, in the Ocoyoacac municipality west of Mexico City, there is an animal shelter called Rescate de Circo y Cautiverio, or Rescue from Circus and Captivity, as Mexico News Daily detailed. 

Mexico banned exotic animals from circuses in 2015, which led to a need for a range of these types of facilities to care for them after they were released. 

According to the Daily News, a lion from this facility escaped and roamed one of San Pedro Cholula's major streets before ReCiCa personnel captured it without incident. 

While work in animal welfare is admirable, ReCiCa has a contentious history. Federal agents attempting to conduct an inspection of the facility were met with armed resistance. This led to a raid and the confiscation of weapons and 27 exotic animals, including lions, tigers, panthers, and a buffalo, Excélsior reported. Forty-two people were arrested, and the facility owners are allegedly linked to drug cartel activity. 

Why is exotic animal captivity important?

Exotic animals continue to be a lucrative trade. Even when governments such as Mexico's attempt to legislate and enforce new protections, criminal elements can leverage those protections for ongoing exploitation. 

Besides ethical concerns for these animals, wild animal populations are in free fall. While much of that is because of habitat loss and climate shifts, holding creatures for trade serves only to further weaken their native ecosystems. Even the legal animal trade can introduce all kinds of invasive species into new areas. 

Exposing these animals to humans poses obvious physical dangers, as with the lion in this case, but it also has more subtle threats. Bringing people into contact with exotic animals can spread novel viruses, too. 

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What's being done about animal captivity?

The Mexican government is continuing to crack down on animal trafficking. One raid in 2023 captured 47 animals, and another 202 were confiscated in 2022. 

While such bans are a step in the right direction, they're likely to produce spillover effects wherein traffickers pivot to other threatened species that don't have the same protections.

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