Giraffes from Mangaratiba (RJ) continue without a destination – 05/07/2023 – Environment

For over a year and a half, 15 South African giraffes have been living between fences, inside the luxury resort Portobello, in Mangaratiba, on the Costa Verde in Rio de Janeiro.

Thousands of kilometers away from their home country, they are waiting to be transferred to a new location, better suited to their needs. The decision on where they are going, however, has not yet been taken, amid legal imbroglios.

Ibama, responsible for inspecting giraffes, says it is still evaluating a solution. BioParque do Rio, which takes care of the animals, says it follows safety protocols and procedures that value their well-being. Meanwhile, four defendants respond in Federal Court for accusations ranging from mistreatment to import fraud.

The giraffes arrived in Brazil on November 11, 2021. Originally, there were 18 of them and they would stay temporarily in Portobello until they were transferred to BioParque, the zoo in Rio. Just over a month later, on December 14, five broke out of confinement.

In the action to capture them, three giraffes died. The deaths, however, were only communicated 50 days later, raising the suspicion of the authorities.

The Federal Police and the Federal Public Ministry opened inquiries and found that the animals had suffered mistreatment and would have been removed from the wild.

According to the necropsy carried out by veterinarians from the BioParque itself, the death of the three giraffes was caused by a muscular disease called myopathy. In the complaint presented to the Federal Court, the prosecution pointed out that the illness was motivated by intense suffering and extreme stress.

“The giraffes, after being removed from nature, were in cubicles, each one getting to stay in a space of 10 m^twosituation of claustrophobic confinement”, said, in the document, the prosecutor responsible for the investigation, Jaime Mitropoulos.

According to the Federal Public Ministry, the giraffes were trapped in tiny spaces and suffered mistreatment until at least May last year, when the resort and the BioParque carried out readjustment works.

According to Inea (State Institute for the Environment), which monitored these interventions, giraffes now live in enclosures ranging from 650 m^two at 990 m^two. Separated into five spaces —divided into five groups of three—, they have free access to an outdoor area, which has water and food.

The new location follows the guidelines of Ibama, which determine that the enclosures are at least 600 m^two. A Sheet, the institute said giraffes are about 4 meters tall, weigh more than 600 kilograms and are extremely sensitive. This is one of the reasons, according to the agency, why the animals have not been transferred outside the resort.

“Any transport requires care, as it puts the lives of animals at risk due to stress,” said Ibama, in a note.

The second reason, says the institute, is that a suitable location has not yet been found. The Public Ministry even asked, in January 2022, that they be returned to South Africa. However, as the months passed, traveling to another continent and re-adapting to wildlife could put them at risk.

With the complaints, Ibama also vetoed the transfer of animals to the BioParque, as it would have been originally done. Now, the agency is looking for a sanctuary —as places where animals are sheltered are called— within Brazil that can welcome them.

legal fight

The investigation by the Federal Public Ministry, based on Ibama documents, points out that the importation of the animals was illegal and based on false information. The investigation indicates that the entrepreneurs who brought the animals used a “fictional conservationist project to justify the arrival of the giraffes, thus disguising the commercial purpose of the activity”.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office also claims that the import document stated that the animals came from the wild — that is, they were wild and captured. That information alone would be an impediment to imports into Brazil, as it goes against Ibama regulations.

Added to this, according to the complaint, the use of documents in the import process that attested that the place where the giraffes would be confined was adequate —which was later pointed out by the inspection bodies, which was not true.

In March of this year, the Public Ministry sent the complaint to the Federal Justice of Rio and indicted four people involved in the case.

BioParque’s director of operations, Manoel Browne de Paula, and the company’s technical consultant, Cláudio Hermes Mass, were accused of mistreatment, of hindering the supervisory action of the Public Power —due to the delay in communicating the death of the three giraffes— and of acquiring animals irregularly.

Ibama analyst Hélio Bustamante Pereira de Sá and Inea employee Priscila Diniz Barros de Almeida were indicted on suspicion of having drawn up false documents to make the importation possible.

Cláudio’s defense denied the accusations of mistreatment and stated that the investigation was based on Ibama documents that were contested by the body itself. Also sought after, Priscila’s defense did not respond to the report’s questions.

A Sheet was unable to contact Manoel and Hélio’s lawyers.

In a note, BioParque stated that it strictly followed Brazilian and South African regulations to bring the giraffes. The company also denied allegations that the animals were taken from the wild.

“Official documents issued by the government of South Africa attest that the animals lived in a farm with sustainable management, approved by the official bodies of the country”, says the company.

Within the scope of state justice, there is also a process underway so that civil society entities can inspect the situation of giraffes and monitor them. Today, access to the animals is restricted to Ibama and BioParque technicians.

The action is moved by the National Forum for Animal Protection and Defense and Anda (Animal Rights News Agency). The two organizations are also signatories of a petition for the giraffes to be taken to a sanctuary in the Midwest, whose climate is closer to the African savannah. The document already has more than 24,000 signatures.

“A giraffe can walk 20 km a day. They were kidnapped as babies and bought at a ridiculous price of R$ 59,000. It’s like taking a baby and locking him in a room for the rest of his life, that’s the suffering that these giraffes are passing by”, says the president of Anda, Silvana Andrade.