MEXICO CITY (AP) — Amid Mexico’s heat wave and drought, suffering birds are getting air-conditioning and monkeys with heatstroke are being rescued by non-governmental groups. The government, meanwhile, has been more preoccupied with cooling down animals at state-run zoos, giving lions frozen meat popsicles. It’s not the only frosty treat: One rescue group is feeding distressed owls with rat carcasses shipped in frozen from Mexico City.
, an area of strong high pressure centered over the southern Gulf of Mexico and northern Central America, has blocked clouds from forming and caused extensive sunshine and hot temperatures all across Mexico, as well as in the United States. Much of the impact on wildlife is being felt in central and southern Mexico, because while temperatures are also high in the north, it is mostly desert and the animals there have some coping mechanisms for extreme heat and drought. On the steamy Gulf coast, an animal park has set up air-conditioned rooms for eagles, owls and other birds of prey.
In the south, . Deaths now probably number over 250. In the southern state of Tabasco, the few monkeys that can be saved from dehydration and heat stroke are mostly being saved by NGOs like the Biodiversity Conservation of The Usumacinta group.
Known by its initials as COBIUS, the group has saved and stabilized 18 of the monkeys. Wildlife biologist Gilberto Pozo, the head of the group, has been accompanying teams of biologists and veterinarians out into the jun.