SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — The only zoo in the Dominican Republic is providing a safe haven for confiscated illegal and smuggled animals as a government crackdown aimed at protecting exotic species gathers pace.
Tucked inside a green oasis in the middle of the capital, Santo Domingo, are crocodiles, flamingos, and even tigers that officials have confiscated from people accused of illegally keeping them. The numbers are growing and threaten to overload the country’s lone zoo.
“It’s a burden,” said Alfonso Ferreira, deputy director of the city's National Zoological Park. “People have a predisposition to owning wild animals.”
Dominican authorities seized 188 animals last year, compared with 30 in 2023, as the government tries to tackle the illegal ownership of certain species. It has also launched educational campaigns to raise awareness about their plight.
So far this year, officials have confiscated more than 8,900 species, although a majority of those were crickets and young fish to feed animals including seahorses.
Commonly, flamingos are the most rescued animals, said Nelson García Marcano, head of the Caribbean nation's Department of Wildlife Regulation and Control.
Flamingos, which are protected, are often illegally taken from their natural habitat and sold to hotels, which use them as garden ornaments, he said. It's a trend that individual homeowners have started to follow.
“People like to copy what they find attractive and beautiful,” said Garcia Marcano, who decried the practice, noting people sometimes amputate a bird's wings. “It’s a migratory animal,” he said. “It’s an animal that should be free.”
On a recent hot morning, The Associated Press visited a flock of rescued flamingos that sought shade in a private section inside the zoo.
They had recently been confiscated by authorities, and it showed. Their typically bright coral feathers were white, as if they had been bleached. Ferreira explained that their captors usually feed them white bread instead of the algae and tiny crustaceans their bodies require.
To reduce the number of flamingos featured at hotels across the Dominican Republic, García Marcano said they have suggested that staff embrace species including the purple gallinule, a crane-like bird with iridescent feathers.
At the zoo, the rescued flamingos receive carrots and bird feed and are rehabilitated for several months before some are released back into their natural habitat.
Nearby, several crocodiles sat without blinking in individual cages filled with greenish water. They, too, had been snatched from their natural habitat and kept as pets.
Encompassing 125 hectares (309 acres), the zoo is big enough that a small train ferries visitors to exhibits, but resources are stretched. Territorial animals such as crocodiles must be isolated, which requires more cages and in turn, more funding.
Veterinarians run multiple tests on the rescued animals to determine their health. Many will require a strict diet because their owners would often have fed them the wrong food, weakening an animal's immune system and causing physical deterioration.
“Before, we only received parakeets and parrots,” said veterinarian Tatiana Carreño Pinto. “Now we have a much wider range of species arriving at the park.”
The zoo also is preparing to take in exotic animals confiscated in neighboring Puerto Rico as part of a deal reached last year, including caimans that have been seized from suspected drug traffickers.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, is struggling with an overload of exotic species, with nearly 100 animals seized over the July 4 weekend alone. They included 80 boa constrictors, eight native boas, four reticulated pythons, three caimans, and four troupials — Venezuela's state bird.
An official with the Rangers Corps of Puerto Rico's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the Dominican Republic, officials continue to try to save species that once roamed free.
A project was launched last year to save an endemic parrot, which is under threat and commonly kept as a pet. The government has erected large billboards warning against the trade in the parrots. García Marcano said officials are receiving a growing number of calls about this practice as people spot them along roads while traveling.
The zoo, once again, steps in to help feed and rehabilitate the seized parrots.
“Operations have been carried out, arrests have been made,” García Marcano said. “It’s like cat and mouse. You have to maintain constant vigilance.”
Flamingos, some of which were rehabilitated, gather in the shade at Santo Domingo's National Zoological Park in Dominican Republic, Wednesday, June 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Danica Coto)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin appeals court on Wednesday restored a 2011 anti-union law that abolished collective bargaining rights, in a setback for unions and public workers. Unions are expected to appeal, sending the case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is controlled by liberal justices.
The 2024 ruling striking down the law as unconstitutional had been on hold pending appeal, so Wednesday’s reversal does not change the status quo. The law remains in effect, as it has been the past 15 years, as the legal fight continues.
Enactment of a 2011 anti-union state law, championed by Republicans, sparked weeks of protests and made Wisconsin the center of a national battle over union rights.
That law, known as Act 10, effectively ended most public employees′ ability to bargain for wage increases and other issues, and forced them to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits.
Supporters of the law say it gives local governments more control over workers and the powers needed to cut costs. They argue that repealing the law, which allowed schools and local governments to raise money through higher employee contributions for benefits, would bankrupt those entities.
Opponents argue the law has hurt schools and government agencies by stripping employees of the right to collectively bargain over pay and working conditions.
Christina Brey, a spokesperson for the unions that brought the lawsuit, said they remain confident on the merits of the case and that they are considering all available options.
“Wisconsin is better when all employees have a say in our workplaces, whether about class sizes in our schools, safety on the job, hours or any other number of areas,” Brey said. “Public service workers across the state won’t stop until we regain free, fair and full collective bargaining rights to negotiate with our employers.”
Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who introduced and championed the law, praised the decision.
“This ruling is a major win for the hard-working taxpayers of Wisconsin and the people they elect to run our schools, state, and local governments,” Walker said in a text message.
All five of the Democratic candidates for governor this year have vowed to repeal the law if elected. The primary is Aug. 11.
The law was Walker’s signature legislative achievement, catapulting him onto the national political stage and spurring an unsuccessful attempt to recall him from office. Walker used the furor to mount a brief, ill-fated run for president that ended in 2015.
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the law despite the massive protests that went on for weeks and drew as many as 100,000 people to the state Capitol.
The law effectively ended collective bargaining for most public unions by allowing them to bargain solely over base wage increases no greater than inflation. It also disallowed the automatic withdrawal of union dues, required annual recertification votes for unions, and forced public workers to pay more for health insurance and retirement benefits. It led to a dramatic decrease in union membership across Wisconsin.
The law has withstood numerous legal challenges over the years, but this is the first since the Wisconsin Supreme Court flipped to liberal control in 2023.
The lawsuit, filed by seven unions and three union leaders, argued Act 10 should be struck down because it creates unconstitutional exemptions for firefighters and other public safety workers. Attorneys for the Legislature and state agencies countered that the exemptions are legal, have already been upheld by other courts, and that the case should be dismissed.
The Legislature said in court filings that arguments made in the current case were rejected in 2014 by the state Supreme Court. The only change since that ruling is the makeup of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, attorneys for the Legislature said.
The three-judge appeals court panel ruled in a 2-1 decision to overturn a December 2024 ruling from Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost, saying the challenged provisions of the law did not violate equal protection guarantees of the Wisconsin Constitution.
The lower court “had no legal basis” to declare the law unconstitutional, the appeals court said.
The Wisconsin Legislature had a “rational basis” for only placing certain public safety workers under the law, the appeals court said.
“Courts must respect both precedent and our role in deferring to the Legislature’s fiscal policy decisions,” the appeals court said.
Appeals Court Judge Shelley Grogan said in a concurring opinion that the timing of the lawsuit was “to say the least, suspect.” The lawsuit was filed in November 2023, three months after the Wisconsin Supreme Court switched from majority conservative control to a majority of liberal justices.
“Renewed attempts to attack Act 10 on already-rejected bases simply because the composition of our supreme court has changed must be rejected,” Grogan wrote. “A law’s constitutionality does not ebb and flow with a court’s composition, and the judicial branch must not be used to advance political agendas on either side of the political spectrum.”
Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer, the lone liberal on the three-judge panel, dissented, saying the lower court was correct. She said the Legislature made “arbitrary and irrational distinctions” by taking away collective bargaining rights from some public employees but not others.
FILE - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker talks to the media Feb. 17, 2011, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis., in response to several state Senators leaving the state to block his bill that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for many state workers. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)
FILE - Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz attends her first hearing as a justice, Sept. 7, 2023, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash, File)
FILE - Protestors, and supporters, of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many state workers gather outside the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. on Feb. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)
FILE - AFSCME member Merryann Wen helps hold up an American flag as she marches around the Capitol Square in Madison, Wis., Feb. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)
FILE - Protestors of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's bill to eliminate collective bargaining rights for many state workers pack the rotunda at the State Capitol Feb. 17, 2011, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Andy Manis, File)
