Should the zoo's last jaguar be replaced when it dies?
Like many other Hong Kong residents I have been a frequent visitor to the jaguar enclosure at the Zoological and Botanical Gardens. When I first met the adult pair they were raising a family in an old-fashioned concrete menagerie cage.
As soon as the children were no longer in the cute stage, they were sent off to the Guangzhou zoo.
One was moved to Nanning and died of a diarrhoeal illness and the other one is still in Guangzhou, living a life of misery in an exposed and featureless concrete box.
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department built the parents a new enclosure with the idea of breeding more cute little jaguars, ostensibly for conservation.
Fortunately, the mother jaguar had a miscarriage and was then unable to conceive, otherwise there would be still more jaguars destined for miserable lives behind bars.
It should be noted that in the wild these shy and magnificent animals may roam up to 100km in a day.