Animal rights in Mexico

“Gimme Shelter” Monterrey’s Animal Welfare Crisis

Animal rights is a forbidding topic in Mexico -an oxymoron, almost- even in Monterrey, Mexico’s affluent financial core. Except for the majestic Sierra Madre Mountains, encircling the Monterrey metropolis, the city resembles U.S. urbanity complete with fast food franchises, strip malls and ubiquitous Starbucks on suburban streets. Yet Mexico-U.S. comparisons abound in the treatment of homeless animals, particularly in Monterrey.

Stray dogs, unlike other areas of Mexico, are largely absent from Monterrey, an industrial city of 3.5 million humans. Just a handful of dogs were observed during a recent visit, skinny and scurrying through San Pedro Garza Garcia, the privileged neighborhood surrounding the University of Monterrey (UDEM). While an absence of animals running loose on city streets denotes a sophisticated urban infrastructure-something the Greeks studied prior to the 2004 Athens Olympics, and municipal officials are just starting to learn in Beijing. Turkey continues to wrestle with the problem of countless breeding stray dogs and cats in their ongoing struggle to join the European Union, an issue facing other developing nations dependent on Euros, tourism, and weakening U.S. dollars: Former pets starving and scurrying around city streets are nothing well-heeled travelers wish to see.

Monterrey continues to look toward northern neighbors when it comes to street animals, at least on the outside. With so much international business and trade-Mexico’s most prominent corporations are based in Monterrey-officials know Monterrey’s setting, rich with galleries, parks, public art, theaters and tourist centers, is a distant cry (or bark or meow) from the Mexican majority, especially concerning human and animal rights. This contrast is especially piquant for Californians raised on Baja sensations and Mexican beaches-Ensenada, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo San Lucas, for example-where stray dogs and cats even outnumber those selling timeshares, a sad fact of life matched only by Mexico’s innumerable indigent natives, orphans and beggars.

But Monterrey is different, at least in the privileged part of town. Peoples’ pets are rarely seen (presumably lounging inside the walled, gated gardens of the city’s many mansions), although several were observed leading human companions on leisurely strolls through Monterrey’s ample parks and green spaces. Although pet stores are not yet a common site in Monterrey-apparently