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Suspicion After Another Lion Dies In Mendoza Zoo

Suspicion After Another Lion Dies In Mendoza Zoo

Argentina's Mendoza zoo has come under scrutiny again after a lion died after undergoing surgery. This is the second lion to die there in recent months, and suspicions have been raised numerous times over the living conditions of animals in the zoo.

The cause of death in this case was not neglect, but a risky operation to mend a serious fracture in the animal's broken right paw. The zoo's chief veterinarian Alberto Duarte said that the lion "would have died in its natural habitat because his species would have abandoned him, and he wouldn't have been able to fend for himself."

He added that it would have been easier to put the animal down, but the medical team and zoo director decided to operate to try and save him.

In May, many speculated on the level of living conditions in the zoo in the central Argentine city after another lion died, with a post-mortem autopsy showing a tumor in its spleen, reports Buenos Aires daily Clarin, and this revived the debate about the zoo's polar bear, Arturo. Many, including global superstar Cher, have urged the zoo to free the bear, though experts have said the 29-year-old animal was too old to travel to its natural habitat, the north pole.

File photo of a lion — Photo: elPadawan

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Society

Genoa Postcard: A Tale Of Modern Sailors, Echos Of The Ancient Mariner

Many seafarers are hired and fired every seven months. Some keep up this lifestyle for 40 years while sailing the world. Some of those who'd recently docked in the Italian port city of Genoa, share a taste of their travels that are connected to a long history of a seafaring life.

A sailor smokes a cigarette on the hydrofoil Procida

A sailor on the hydrofoil Procida in Italy

Daniele Frediani/Mondadori Portfolio via ZUMA Press
Paolo Griseri

GENOA — Cristina did it to escape after a tough breakup. Luigi because he dreamed of adventures and the South Seas. Marianna embarked just “before the refrigerator factory where I worked went out of business. I’m one of the few who got severance pay.”

To hear their stories, you have to go to the canteen on Via Albertazzi, in Italy's northern port city of Genoa, across from the ferry terminal. The place has excellent minestrone soup and is decorated with models of the ships that have made the port’s history.

There are 38,000 Italian professional sailors, many of whom work here in Genoa, a historic port of call that today is the country's second largest after Trieste on the east coast. Luciano Rotella of the trade union Italian Federation of Transport Workers says the official number of maritime workers is far lower than the reality, which contains a tangle of different laws, regulations, contracts and ethnicities — not to mention ancient remnants of harsh battles between shipowners and crews.

The result is that today it is not so easy to know how many people sail, nor their nationalities.

What is certain is that every six to seven months, the Italian mariner disembarks the ship and is dismissed: they take severance pay and after waits for the next call. Andrea has been sailing for more than 20 years: “When I started out, to those who told us we were earning good money, I replied that I had a precarious life: every landing was a dismissal.”

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