Eduardo Sacasa, veterinarian and head of the National Zoo of Nicaraguastarred in an emotional moment when He said goodbye this Sunday to his partner “Pipo”, a chimpanzee of almost 38 years whom he cared for like a son for the past 25 years.
“I come to say goodbye to you. I’m going to leave (from the National Zoo) and I’m here to say goodbye. Marina (his wife of his and director of that animal shelter) and I are already tired, and we have come to say goodbye, ”said Sacasa began in a video posted on social networks.
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Starting in November, the National Zoo or “Zoo Nicaragua”, one of the most visited family destinations in that country, will pass into the hands of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources following 25 years of being managed by a team of experts from the Friends of the Nicaraguan Zoo Foundation (Fazoonic), chaired by Sacasa.
In the video posted on Facebook you can see the vet moved, hugging and caressing the chimpanzee with whom he lived for 25 years and whom he helped heal on two occasions. The animal responds to his words by “playing”, with hugs and kisses.
“Pipo: I’m sorry to leave you, very sorry!It hurts me a lot to leave you, it makes me very sad”, said Sacasa, visibly moved.
The vet explained that “Pipo” came to Nicaragua from Havana, Cubawhen he was 11 months old and met him when he became director of the National Zoo in 1997.
“Since that day we met we did like a good chemistry and I was gaining his affection and their friendship, because they are also very angry and with the strength of almost five men they are very dangerous,” he said.
According to your file, “Pipo” had suffered an accident in the cage in which he waswhen the roof fell on him and caused severe damage to his skull, forcing him to undergo a reconstruction surgery.
As a result, the chimpanzee was left with several consequences, including loss of teeth and one of his eyes on the side.
In 2012, the chimpanzee was the victim of another accident following one of the schoolchildren threw a backpack with a knife inside the cage, with which “Pipo” He sustained injuries to both legs, one of them seriously.
“With his first accident plus his second, he became super aggressive, because he mightn’t see a group of school children and worse (if they pretended) that he was going to give him food and in the end they didn’t give him anything; his reaction was to bite the old wounds until the piece of meat was torn off and it happened like that several times, so we decided not to take it out when there were a lot of people to avoid that problem,” he said.
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After recounting the life of “Pipo”, Sacasa said that “the hardest, the saddest” is saying goodbye to the chimpanzee and that he did so “with great pain” in his heart, and “with tears in my eyes.”
“I just hope that just as we took care of him for 25 years, giving him a lot of love (…) the new (administrators) who will be in charge of the Zoo, keep doing it, because he is a very grateful little animal,” he said.
More than 1,000 specimens of almost a hundred species that live in the National Zoo, located 16 kilometers southeast of Managua, will pass into the hands of state From November, announced its director Marina Argüello last Friday in a farewell video.
Argüello denied that the Government of Daniel Ortega had confiscated the center, and assured that, “for health reasons”, its administration will be handed over to the Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources.
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Among the species it hosts are African lions, lizards, Bengal tigers, pumas, hippos, ostriches, rangers, iguanas, monkeys, jaguars, tapirs and chimpanzees.