Tijuana officials are scrambling to find new homes for roughly 160 animals after shutting down Parque Morelos, the city’s zoo, in the wake of a damning internal audit.
The closure followed a review of the Tijuana Municipal System of Themed Parks, which exposed a long list of administrative and operational failures that had quietly eroded the facility’s ability to properly care for its animals over the years.
City officials say the problems went beyond neglect of the grounds. Between 50% and 60% of the park’s staff — many of them senior citizens — had reportedly been paid below the legal minimum wage for years, according to Tijuana’s municipal comptroller, Teresita Balderas. She confirmed that investigators are now looking into whether officials from the current and past city administrations knew about, or contributed to, the conditions that allowed this to continue.
To relocate the animals, the park’s director is expected to contact the San Diego Zoo about potentially transferring some of the species across the border. Officials are also weighing options closer to home, including zoos in Ensenada, Mexicali, and Guadalajara, along with a safari park in Puebla.
The shutdown comes just weeks after the death of Mandy, a Bengal tiger who had been living at the park. Officials say her medical records pointed to obesity, and she ultimately died of a heart attack tied to her weight — a death that has since drawn scrutiny to how animals were being managed at the facility.
Balderas pushed back on the idea that Parque Morelos should even be classified as a zoo, arguing that, administratively, it has always functioned as a theme park — not a facility equipped to meet the specialized needs of exotic and wild animals.
For now, the roughly 160 animals across 15 species remain at the shuttered park while officials work out where they’ll ultimately end up.