When it comes to the Cuban regime, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has made one thing clear lately: The people running the country are incompetent. “The only thing worse than a communist is an incompetent communist,” he said recently.
As it turns out, they’re so incompetent that even the zoo animals are suffering. Though I’m not sure if this is actual incompetence or just general apathy for anything that doesn’t benefit the regime directly.
A woman visited the state-run Camagüey Zoo in Cuba last week and noted on social media that the lions looked a bit pathetic. The images went viral, and several independent Cuban media outlets picked up the story.
Leones del zoológico en Cuba se están muriendo de hambre, hace alrededor de 5 años se hizo esta denuncia, trajeron otros y los tienen iguales.
Para denunciar realidades no hay que mentir, en comunismo todo es un desastre. Nada y nadie escapa de la miseria y el hambre socialista. pic.twitter.com/QkuaozUtQc— Licenciado Luis Estrada. (@LuisEst17468144) April 2, 2026
As “El Trumpista” on X said, “Nothing and no one escapes the misery and hunger generated by communism.”
For what it’s worth, I haven’t heard anything from groups like PETA about this and don’t expect to, unless it’s to blame Donald Trump. But the story isn’t new. Those who live there say these animals have suffered for years. And it’s not unique to this single zoo. In February, the organization Bienestar Animal Cuba (BAC) reported that all of the animals at Puerto Padre Zoo in Las Tunas — also state-owned and managed — were emaciated, weak, and/or living in deplorable conditions.
Back to the lions at Camagüey. Apparently, a group of concerned citizens showed up at the zoo, offering to feed those poor creatures, but the zoo director refused to allow them. They pooled their own money out of the kindness of their hearts and even offered to take on the responsibility of feeding the lions regularly. According to one of them, Pedro González, the zoo director, told them the animals “have a diet.”
“Where is that diet when animals are dying of hunger?” González asked. “Where is the care when the water is dirty and the environment is unhealthy… It is prohibited to feed the animals, but it does not seem to be prohibited for them to go hungry; it is prohibited to help, but not to abandon; it is prohibited to act, but not to turn a blind eye.”
As I said, the post went viral. The zoo said people were spreading “misinformation and slander.”
A couple of days after all of this, a reporter from Cubanet visited the zoo and reported that it wasn’t just the lions. The primates sat in their own feces, and peacocks, zebras, and crocodiles also lived in awful conditions. But, he noted, zoo workers appeared to be cleaning up the facility, feeding the animals, and making some repairs. They were also attempting to prevent visitors from taking photos or videos. I guess the regime can’t really afford any more bad PR at the moment, while all eyes are upon them as we wait to see what Rubio and Trump plan to do there.
Of course, this situation isn’t unique to the zoo animals. As I’ve been reporting for months, people are starving and lack access to clean water. I’ve seen stories over the past week of an elderly woman in San Germán, Holguín, who admitted she often goes three days without eating. She lives alone with her mentally disabled son.
A young woman heard her story and brought her some rice, oil, beans, pasta, and other foods. “I thank God first and foremost… because sometimes we go three days without food. If it weren’t for my neighbors, I wouldn’t be alive,” the older woman said.
People who do have food are also relying on firewood and charcoal to cook it, or they wait until they have briefly have power to do so. I read one story about a woman who does all of her cooking at 3 a.m. because that’s when she has electricity.
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