Juma couldn’t bear being kept in a cage and being subjected to humiliations and deprivation, but this led her to face death. Juma was a female jaguar (Panthera onca), America’s largest feline threatened with extinction mainly because of deforestation, poaching and human-wildlife conflicts. Why Juma was killed Juma was used – chained up – in
Juma couldn’t bear being kept in a cage and being subjected to humiliations and deprivation, but this led her to face death. Juma was a female jaguar (Panthera onca), America’s largest feline threatened with extinction mainly because of deforestation, poaching and human-wildlife conflicts.
Juma was used – chained up – in an Olympic torch ceremony in Manaus, Brazil. Following the event, when her handlers were trying to take her back to her cage, Juma escaped. Soldiers firstly shot the animal with tranquilisers but failed to stop it, so it was shot dead.
“It escaped and ran off as it was being moved from one area to another in the zoo,” said Colonel Luiz Gustavo Evelyn from the Centro de Instrução de Guerra na Selva (CIGS). “To protect the handler, it was sacrificed”. Juma was probably under stress, scared, and disoriented and felt the primordial desire of going back to the Amazon, her one and only home.
Juma’s death was an accident, but it is another example of how people abuse animals, as they were totally subjected to our will. The presence of a wild, rare and threatened animal was useless and cruel and reminds us of how animals are exhibited in circuses.
According to IPAM (Instituto de Proteção Ambiental do Amazonas), using the jaguar in a ceremony was illegal. “Nobody asked permission for using Juma in the Olympic torch ceremony,” wrote IPAAM, which also opened an investigation.
Tradotto da Camilla Soldati