The video of a tourist, we have come to know as Ruben Stoll, following and petting a wild jaguar cub has sparked widespread public outrage. But will Stoll face any consequence for tampering with an animal in the wild?
The Minister of Sustainable Development-who is also responsible for biodiversity-told us that a team was deployed to look for Stoll but they have not found him yet.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development & Forestry
"We were informed about what occurred a video was shared with me and we frowned it to the department luckily they department had seen it from the night before and so we tried to find the location of where they were because according to the video itself it seemed they were going to be around the country looking at wildlife and doing other visits including birding. so our staff were informed and we got some information that they were going to be by La Milpa. Our staff went out there but unfortunately we could not locate them yesterday and accordingly they had gone birding and sod we could not find them so what we did yesterday was to produce a report sort of so that then people can see the damages that is being done and to inform them that if they saw it then they should come into the forestry department otherwise if we get to them before with the police then we would have to bring them in and so the press release was basically saying you should not interfere with the animals, quote the legislation saying they should not and then also informing that there is a fine there is a penalty, but more on the side of information and education so that the public can know the wildlife is there it is fine for us to just look at them and enjoy the scenery, the beauty, and we should not interfere and touch them because it is also dangerous because those cubs certainly had their mother close by and that could have been very dangerous it could have been fatal and the person could have been attacked."
