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Amsterdam / Buenos Aires
Global animal welfare organization FOUR PAWS has launched the first phase of a large-scale emergency relief mission in Argentina. At the former Zoo Luján—closed in 2020 due to serious animal welfare concerns—our team is providing urgent medical care to more than 60 big cats and two bears.
It's the largest veterinary mission we've ever conducted on big cats in such a short period – the medical mission is scheduled to run from October 23rd to the end of November. Conditions on site are difficult: the enclosures are too small, there are too many animals, and the lions and tigers are kept together in cages. The two bears are also living in precarious conditions, but are separated from the big cats.
Cooperation with the Argentine government
Our main short-term goal is to improve the welfare of the lions, tigers, and two brown bears and provide them with urgent medical care. Our team of veterinarians and wildlife experts is currently working on this. This is the first step of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we signed with the Argentine government in July. In the longer term, we aim to work with the government to find suitable solutions for the animals in the former zoo and to ban the commercial trade and private ownership of big cats in Argentina.
New charges have been filed in what may be Argentina’s largest-ever illegal hunting and wildlife trafficking case. Key defendant Carlos Pablo Escontrela attempted to flee the country, and as a flight risk may be forced to remain behind bars in pretrial detention. Prosecutors presented new evidence in the case earlier this year that strengthened the case — and added animal abuse and illegal possession of weapons of war to the charges against Escontrela.
Arrests in the case date back a year ago. In August 2024, after a months-long investigation into Caza & Safaris Argentina, a high-end hunting outfit that targeted protected wildlife, specialized agents from the Environmental Control Brigade (BCA by its Spanish acronym) coordinated 13 raids in different parts of the country.
It was a massive effort, involving at least 70 agents in 20 vehicles. They seized more than 8,000 animal parts, mostly from protected species, and more than half of which were preserved hunting trophies. They also discovered live animals that included a puma and five peccaries. Authorities confiscated an illegal cache of 35 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
Seven men were arrested and now face a litany of charges, including criminal conspiracy, hunting of protected wildlife species, illegal provision of firearms, illegal possession of weapons of war, and animal abuse. If convicted, wildlife crimes can carry penalties of up to three years in prison.
The defendants include Escontrela and Jorge Noya, the two alleged kingpins, who are partners in a hunting company, Los Moros SRL. The others include two hunters, a taxidermist, the company’s social media manager, and a person who transported the animal parts.
Noya, who is famous on the international safari hunting circuit and also a veterinarian, is believed to head the operation. In 1979, he founded Caza & Safaris (Hunting & Safaris in English). Now with three lodges, the outfit caters heavily to international clients, particularly North Americans and Europeans. On its website, it promises to “obtain the best hunt result of each species.” It allegedly sold hunting packages costing up to $50,000 in Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Prosecutors say that Escontrela and Noya tried to make their hunting activities appear legitimate.
This Caza & Safaris case is the first-ever environmental case that’s been linked to organized crime in Argentina, where poaching and the illegal wildlife trade have historically been seen as low-level crime.
“Wildlife crimes are considered very minor in Argentina,” a source close to the case told Mongabay Latam, speaking on condition of anonymity. “That’s why it’s important to strengthen these investigations — not stopping at wildlife offenses alone, but also investigating and prosecuting the crimes that go hand in hand with illegal hunting.”
Prosecutors expressed concerned about whether Escontrela would appear in court to face trial, and petitioned the judge to detain him along with one of the accused hunters, who was a fugitive until late 2024. The prosecutor’s detention request was denied.
Mongabay Latam accessed documents detailing Escontrela’s potential flight risk. The court in December 2024 ordered him not to leave the country or travel more than 200 kilometers (about 120 miles) from his home. Escontrela repeatedly violated the ruling.
A judge did, however, authorize a trip to the United States the next month, from Jan. 3-20, 2025, with the caveat that he appear in court within 48 hours of his return to Argentina.
However, the prosecutor’s office confirmed that, instead, on the night of Jan. 8, Escontrela tried to cross the Tancredo Neves International Bridge into Brazil. His attempt to flee was foiled because he was driving in a vehicle that was slated for seizure under a court order.
In an interview with Mongabay Latam, defense lawyer Diego Lindow denied that his client had attempted to escape. Our investigation found that Escontrela claimed to misunderstand his travel restrictions. But his previous actions appear to belie that claim.
On at least two other occasions, Escontrela failed to comply with the travel restriction order. Sergio Mola, the chief prosecutor in the case, said this is evidence of Escontrela’s intention to leave the country to evade prosecution.
An additional 13 vehicles that were paid for by Caza & Safaris are also subject to confiscation: 11 linked to Escontrela and two others linked to another defendant in the case.
It’s expected that Escontrela’s prison exemption will now be revoked
During the August 2024 raids, officials found a live puma cub (Puma concolor) at the Guampacha hunting ground, which is one of two owned by Escontrela; the second is in Santo Domingo municipality, in Santiago del Estero province. His partner, Noya, owns another site in Dolores, located in Buenos Aires province.
The cub was trapped inside a reeking barrel that had been used for fuel. It could barely move inside the small container, and it had no food or water. Authorities also found five collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) in a tiny pen, also left without anything to eat or drink. Hunting both of these species is illegal.
Escontrela’s lawyer, Lindow, denied any wrongdoing. Possessing peccaries doesn’t violate the province’s wildlife laws, he claimed, though his client had previously been fined for this.
The puma, he said, had fallen into a trap placed by local people to prevent wildcats from attacking their goats, and a field worker was caring for the cub in order to later release it. Documents accessed by Mongabay Latam showed that Escontrela failed to provide proof: he’d promised to provide information from the neighbor who purportedly trapped the puma, but failed to do so.
Provincial officials didn’t find any visible injuries or marks on the cat, disproving claims made by Escontrela and his defense team that it had been trapped. Veterinary tests determined that the animals were fit to return to their natural habitats, and they were immediately released into Las Sierras de Guasayán Reserve.
It’s believed these animals were being held at Guampacha so they could later be hunted by clients.
Authorities found a dead puma that had been frozen at the Santo Domingo hunting ground. In a statement, Escontrela said it was a “judicial deposit” from a prior case: In Argentina, evidence is sometimes sealed and left where it’s found. But the prosecutor’s office determined that the puma’s body had no signs that would identify it as a judicial deposit.
The freezers at the Santo Domingo site also contained the bodies of other protected native species: armadillos, gray brocket deer (Mazama gouazoubira) and red-crested pochards (Netta rufina), a type of large duck. These and other taxidermied species are suspected to have been illegally hunted.
Mongabay Latam’s investigation uncovered incriminating evidence in Escontrela’s testimony. The defendant said that each hunter who came to the Santo Domingo hunting ground was allowed to bag one white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari) until 2019, and one puma per hunter was permitted until 2021. However, hunting of white-lipped peccaries is prohibited under a resolution by the Directorate of Wildlife and Forests. Puma hunting is only allowed if the cat has killed livestock, for which a complaint proving evidence of harm must first be filed.
It’s not clear why Caza & Safaris wasn’t shut down years ago. Noya’s hunting grounds were raided in 2018 by federal police, who seized more than 80 wildlife byproducts. According to La Nación, these were “taxidermied specimens that lacked documentation proving their origin and ownership.”
The specimens came from species that included wild boar, warthog, red deer, axis deer, blackbuck, and even elephant. Some 3,700 shotgun shells were found, violating quantities allowed under the National Agency for Controlled Materials. No arrests were made.
La Nacion quoted concerns raised at the time by Javier García Espil, then-national director of biodiversity and water resources at the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. “Poaching and illegal trade are threats to biodiversity,” he said. “We must become aware of the damage these practices cause to the natural and cultural heritage of Argentines and promote a cultural change to combat them.”
Argentina’s Wildlife Conservation Act contains criminal charges for poaching, and some of the species discovered on Noya’s property are protected under an international treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. Most hunting clients were foreigners, but it’s unclear if their trophies were shipped to them illegally.
That case was shelved until 2024.
Noya remains under house arrest on the current charges, but he’s also wanted in Bolivia, according to Noticias Ambientales. There, hestands accused of biocide and destruction of natural heritage, after allegedly hunting jaguars in San Matías National Park.
There were other inconsistencies in statements about Escontrela’s Guampacha and Santo Domingo hunting grounds. Defense lawyers claimed that in 2017, Noya and Escontrela dissolved Los Moros SRL and no longer offered hunting services.
The company was registered and renewed in 2019 and 2023, the same years that the Guampacha site was issued hunting and gun permits. However, the Santo Domingo hunting ground was never authorized for hunting activities nor allowed to store firearms. Escontrela has acknowledged that his two hunting grounds continued to operate until June 2024.
Meanwhile, illegal possession and use of guns was rampant. Examples include an unregistered semi-automatic weapon found on the premises at Guampacha as well as Escontrela’s personal arsenal: he has 26 firearms registered under his name, though his permit expired in June 2024. The other defendant — the fugitive hunter — has a permit that expired in 2017, but he continued to hunt until the day the raids began.
The prosecutor’s office identified at least four foreigners believed to have hunted on Caza & Safaris’ properties who had entered Argentina without any guns and didn’t obtain the required permits to use weapons. This points to alleged illegal provision of weapons by Caza & Safaris.
When enforcement authorities searched Noya’s El Pantanal site in Dolores municipality, they discovered 140 untreated animal hides, including fresh capybara hides (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) with pieces of flesh still on them. Hunting these large rodents, as well as pumas and peccaries, is prohibited in Santiago del Estero and Buenos Aires provinces.
Authorities also confiscated a .375-caliber rifle with its serial number filed off and reengraved. They also found a compressed air gun used to fire tranquilizer darts, and two weapons with built-in silencers, both illegal. Images published on the “Africa Hunting” online forum show a hunter holding a weapon with a silencer near the bodies of a deer and an antelope: these photos were taken at El Pantanal in March 2024.
Investigations are ongoing as authorities log thousands of confiscated objects and documentary evidence against the seven defendants. A court date has not yet been set.
Banner image: The white-lipped peccary is a protected species in Argentina. Image via Caza & Safaris’ website.
This story was first published here in Spanish on April 10, 2025.
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Today marks a monumental step in the journey of Kenya, a 44-year-old female African elephant, as Global Sanctuary for Elephants (GSE) begins transporting her from Ecoparque Mendoza in Argentina to Elephant Sanctuary Brazil (ESB).
Kenya’s departure closes a chapter spanning 136 years of elephant captivity in Argentina, which began in 1889 when the first elephants arrived in Buenos Aires. With this relocation, Argentina becomes the first country in the world to voluntarily and ethically relocate all its captive elephants to sanctuary.
This momentous move is the culmination of years of careful preparation, training and respect for Kenya’s pace, and she is now en route to a life of healing, autonomy and potential companionship in the vast, wild sanctuary habitat.
For four decades, Kenya has lived in the confined, sterile environment of Ecoparque Mendoza, a small, hard-packed yard surrounded by concrete with little to engage her mind or her senses. Despite her imposing size and striking beauty, Kenya’s life has been marked by loneliness, boredom and frustration. But now, all of that begins to change as she embarks on a new chapter of her life, one where her needs will be met with the respect and care she deserves. Kenya has shown remarkable progress in her training, and today, she willingly entered her transport crate, ready for the next phase of her journey. Her GSE caregivers and ecoparque staff have ensured that her comfort and well-being are prioritized at every step of her move.
“This is not just about relocating Kenya. It’s about restoring her dignity, her autonomy and her sense of self as an elephant,” said Scott Blais, co-founder and CEO of GSE. “We owe Kenya a future where healing is possible, where her voice is heard and where she’s free to just be an elephant — on her own terms.”
This move reflects a significant shift in how the world is beginning to view elephants in captivity. Across the globe, more and more facilities like Ecoparque Mendoza are voluntarily relocating their elephants to sanctuaries, recognizing that the needs of these intelligent and emotionally complex individuals cannot be fully met within the confines of traditional captive environments.
Kenya's journey to ESB is part of a growing movement that prioritizes the emotional, physical and social well-being of elephants, offering them the opportunity to live as close to their natural lives as possible. This trend is a clear signal that the world is starting to understand and respect elephants not just as attractions, but as beings deserving of dignity and autonomy.
The relocation journey is underway, and Kenya is being transported under the watchful care of experienced elephant caregivers, veterinary professionals and a security team to ensure her comfort and safety throughout the process. Over the course of the five-day journey, every aspect of Kenya’s physical and emotional welfare will be carefully attended to.
Once she arrives at ESB, Kenya will be given access to a vast natural habitat where she can roam, forage and interact with the life that thrives in her space. For the first time in nearly 40 years, she will have the opportunity for companionship with another elephant, Pupy, a female African elephant who was welcomed to ESB in April 2025. At ESB, Kenya will be able to reconnect with her natural behaviors, build new bonds if she chooses and begin healing from the years of isolation and captivity she has endured.
“This is a turning point in Kenya’s life,” said Blais. “We’re grateful for the support of Ecoparque Mendoza and the many individuals who have helped make this moment possible.”
Kenya’s journey is a reminder of the incredible resilience of elephants and the transformative power of sanctuary. For updates on her relocation and to learn more about how you can support Kenya’s transition, visit:
globalelephants.org/a-promise-for-kenya
About Global Sanctuary for Elephants:
Global Sanctuary for Elephants is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to protecting, rescuing and providing sanctuary for captive elephants worldwide. At their accredited, wild-habitat sanctuary, Elephant Sanctuary Brazil, they deliver unmatched care to elephants rescued from zoos, circuses and other detrimental environments. Their approach is characterized by an integrative view of elephant welfare, a dedication to recognizing the individuality of each elephant and a commitment to providing them with the highest level of autonomy possible.
Global Sanctuary for Elephants is the recipient of the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries’ 2022 Outstanding International Sanctuary Award and Candid’s 2025 Platinum Seal of Transparency.
Kara Edwards
Global Sanctuary for Elephants
+1 615-219-9445
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