When Orlando was just a cub, he was part of the Tejedor Circus staff, until mid 1990 the Department of Natural Resources of Mendoza seized him and determined that he must stay at the provincial capital Zoo...

Today, Orlando is about 20 years old and is already a "Tigre Viejo". In late 2010, the Mendoza Zoo accepted the proposal and joined the Jaguar Network - red yaguareté PReMYCA by signing an agreement. Since then, our coordinator in Mendoza, Diego Ferrer, found great willingness and people wanting to improve the situation of Orlando, who was with some health problems and with some extra kilos. So we started working together, oriented in his welfare.

But, why not release him into the wild instead of keeping him in the Zoo?

The decision of not to release him relied on various circumstances. At the time of confiscating him some of the reasons were:

- Not known conclusively their origin -birthplace, whether it was in captivity or in the wild and if so, in what region-, so that a release would be risky for wild jaguars -could transmit them a disease- and his genetic characteristics were unknown.

- Orlando have lived almost 10 years between humans, which makes that -among other things- he do not matter and do not avoid their presence. Nor he didn't know how to hunt and feed by himself.

- He had no contact with wild individuals, who could easily kill him in a territorial dispute, so common in nature.

To all these reasons, now we have to add his advanced age. In the wild the longevity recorded was 13 years, and in captivity, is estimated at between 20-25 years, that is, Orlando is now transiting his old age ...

And then, what can we do for him?

The captivity deprives wildlife of deploying a range of behaviors that keep them healthy, in good physical and mental health. This is because they lack the diversity of stimuli that their natural environment provide them.

To bridge this gap, we develop with Orlando a series of tasks that we call environmental enrichment, wich consist in presenting stimuli similar to those he would find in his natural environment in order to promote these behaviors he need for his welfare.

Some of the enrichments we do with him are:

- We built a swimming pool, considering that the Yaguar loves water,

- We incorporate vegetation in the interior, putting in beds several species of plants,

- We enlarged the premises, within the structural possibilities, doubled its size, he has twice the old area to move now, and although it could never look like his natural environment, is a 100% more space and Orlando use it.

- We gave him hanging objects such as tires to generate novelty and arouse their curiosity, which has happened successfully

- We built a log ladder to encourage it to go up and down the platform,

- To all this we add that in all these sites is hidden novel food and objects with bright aromas, which stimulates and forces him to move. It is not given food directly into a container, he must work for it. This also helps him to exercise, something that had not happened in a long time and has produced an overweight that we are looking to correct.

Orlando may go unnoticed or become an ambassador for their wild relatives, which are seriously threatened. We chose, along with staff Mendoza zoo, for trying to improve his life and use his presence to teach the visitors, that we need people involved with the great Jaguar, so it will not disappear from our country.

And you?