Latest Mexico zoo attraction: Narco pets

As authorities target a growing number of drug traffickers in Mexico's drug war, many of their pets, like these wolves, are being driven from their gilded cages to country zoos. "It's a bizarre psychology for the people that keep these animals," said Manlio Nucamendi, zoo coordinator in Zacango, Mexico.

Authorities have discovered drug cartel private zoos that housed tigers, panthers and lions among other animals of exotic breeds. They ended up in the same refuge, the Zacango zoo, as this 3-decade-old elephant seized from a circus because his owners didn't have the proper permits.

A jaguar takes a stroll. Leaders of the ruthless Mexican Zetas cartel have been rumored to feed victims to lions and tigers kept in their properties, local media have reported.

A lion cub approaches a person's hand from behind a gate at Zacango.

Racoons sit in their closure.

A squirrel monkey peers through its cage in Zacango. "Even the zoos have limits, and can't welcome all the animals," said Reuter Cortes of the conservation group the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico.