Buenos Aires is giving in to public demand and shutting down its 140-year-old zoo after a string of preventable animal deaths. Roughly 2,500 animals will be moved to nature reserves while about 50 animals will remain on site over concerns that the move would be too stressful, said Mayor of Argentina’s capital city, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. “This situation of captivity is degrading for the animals, it’s not the way to take care of them," said Rodriguez at a ceremony last week.

A number of animals have died at the Buenos Aires zoo. In 2015, two sea lions died after performing 15 consecutive shows. And in 2012, the zoo’s last polar bear “Winner” died on Christmas morning as temperatures skyrocketed to 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius).

The zoo will transition into an ecological park, “where children can learn how to take care of and relate with different species,” said Rodriguez.

One celebrity animal will be among the 50 animals deemed too old or fragile to move to nature reserves. The orangutan Sandra made headlines in 2014 when she was dubbed “a non-human person” who was legally entitled to basic rights by an Argentinian court. The ruling was supposed to move Sandra out of the zoo and to a nature reserve (with one reserve even offering to pay for the transfer), but she was never actually moved. Now the famous Orangutan will finish her life as one of the last residents of the defunct zoo.

The zoo has blamed falling revenue from dwindling attendance for its woes in caring for the animals. Activists believe more zoos around the world need to change. Longtime advocate for the zoo’s closure, Gerardo Biglia, said in a press release that this announcement is only the beginning. "The most important thing is breaking with the model of captivity and exhibition. I think there is a change coming for which we are already prepared because kids nowadays consider it obvious that it's wrong for animals to be caged."

Advocates around the world are fighting to close zoos. While a court petition in Costa Rica recently failed to shut the nation’s zoos, high profile deaths of animals in captivity, like the recent shooting of a gorilla in the US city of Cincinnati, is bringing more pressure for zoos to either reform or close down.