Benito the giraffe begins long journey for better weather in central Mexico

Conditions at Ciudad Juárez zoo on US-Mexico border not suitable so container takes Benito to conservation park 1,000 miles away

After a campaign by environmentalists, Benito the giraffe has left the extreme weather conditions of Mexico’s northern border, and embarked on a thousand-mile journey to a conservation park where the climate is more akin to his natural habitat and already a home to other giraffes.

Environmental groups had long voiced strong complaints about conditions faced by Benito at the city-run Central Park zoo in Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, where weather in the summer is brutally hot and temperatures plunge during the winter.