Sonora Market’s Animal Sales: A Decade-Long Fight Nears Prohibited End
A decade-long struggle to prohibit the sale of live animals at Mexico City’s Sonora Market is nearing its end, with a judicial mandate expected to halt the practice before the close of 2025. This marks a significant victory for animal rights activists, but also signals the beginning of a new legal battle between vendors, animal welfare advocates, and authorities from the Venustiano Carranza borough and Mexico City.
For decades, animal welfare organizations have decried the conditions at Sonora Market, where countless farm animals and pets are kept in overcrowded, abusive environments. Many of these animals are sold for ritual sacrifices in Santería, witchcraft, and other beliefs. These long-standing complaints may soon lead to changes across all 339 public markets in Mexico City.
The Legal Framework: A Ban Ignored for Years
Since 2017, local regulations have prohibited the sale of live animals in the capital’s public markets. Articles 25, 28, and 28 Bis of the Mexico City Animal Protection Law stipulate this ban and establish measures for authorized establishments, including the issuance of sales and health certificates for animals, care and feeding manuals, and the mandatory presence of a veterinarian. However, these legal provisions have largely been ignored in many of the estimated 424 establishments dedicated to animal sales in specialized markets across Mexico City.
The turning point arrived on August 14, when magistrates of the Twentieth Collegiate Tribunal for Administrative Matters of the First Circuit ruled on amparo review number 167/2024, stemming from amparo lawsuit 1547/2023. The ruling favored the civil association ‘Va por sus Derechos,’ citing omissions by local authorities such as the Venustiano Carranza borough, the Animal Care Agency, the Animal Surveillance Brigade, and the Markets Department in failing to report and prevent irregular sales and animal abuse at Sonora Market.
This resolution, accessed by Reporte Índigo, mandates the creation of a program to enforce a total ban on animal sales at Sonora Market, a campaign promoting the importance of protecting sentient beings’ rights, and preventing their sale in public markets. Furthermore, the sentence orders the precautionary seizure of animals, the offer of commercial alternatives, compensation, or training for affected vendors, the installation of veterinary clinics (fixed or mobile), and the appointment of observers during verification visits. This must be complied with by December 31 of this year.
Despite the judicial order, establishments continue to sell animals in overcrowded conditions, and vendors at Sonora Market are resisting. In the past week, authorities have closed at least six such establishments.
A Decade of Advocacy: The Road to the Ban
While the amparo lawsuit won in 2025 marks a milestone, the legal battle to achieve this prohibition has been ongoing for at least a decade in local courts, involving numerous animal defense organizations.
In 2018, nullity lawsuit TJ/I-77403/2018, promoted by the Citizen Front for Animal Rights (Frecda) before the Administrative Justice Tribunal of Mexico City, sought to enforce the sales ban established in Article 25, Section XXI, of the Mexico City Animal Protection and Welfare Law. Although Frecda won the legal dispute in 2020, the sentence was never executed. However, it served as a precedent for amparo lawsuit 1547/2023.
Ethel Frida Herrejón, spokesperson for the National Alliance One Million Hopes-an organization comprising 172 civil associations nationwide-and Mexico’s representative in the ‘América Unida por los Seres Sintientes’ movement, explained to Reporte Índigo the legal battle undertaken by these organizations alongside Frecda, which spearheaded the initiative to recognize animals as sentient beings.
“This achievement to ban animal sales in Sonora Market is historic,” Herrejón stated, detailing their legal process. “We requested, through the Transparency Institute, in each and every borough of Mexico City, the names of places that sold live animals.”
Since then, Herrejón recounted, Frecda began “a pitched battle” with amparos and legal instruments to enforce the provisions of the Mexico City Animal Protection and Welfare Law. “They had already received a warning, yet they ignored it. But this time, the borough had no choice but to comply, otherwise the mayor of Venustiano Carranza would have been removed from office,” she explained.
The spokesperson for the National Alliance One Million Hopes noted that their fight for animal defense has brought positive changes to the country, despite the high personal cost, including death threats.
“In Mexico, One Million Hopes has brought 14 sentient being initiatives across the nation, of which we are immensely proud to be the watershed for the defense of animals as sentient beings, a fight we will maintain until we see them no longer abused in Sonora Market or other animal sales venues,” Herrejón concluded.
Undercover Sales: A Glimpse into the Market’s Dark Side
Ninfa, who withheld her full name for fear of retaliation, is a citizen who, like many, visits Sonora Market annually for New Year’s items. However, she described it as a place she enters cautiously due to the distressing sight of animal suffering.
“When I go, I only visit the candle stalls because there are places that offer horrifying things. Once, a vendor told me that to have better luck in the new year, I had to write my wishes with an eagle’s feather, which seemed almost impossible. But he pulled out the carcass of a golden eagle and plucked feathers to offer,” she recounted.
During her visits, Ninfa discovered aisles with animals, “piled up and in filth,” along with offerings of dogs, cats, turtles, birds, chickens, goats, sheep, pigeons, and many other animals, also offered in black or white colors for sacrifice in witchcraft rituals.
Ninfa believes the animal sales ban “is a positive step to protect sentient beings,” but lamented the lack of further investigation by authorities into animal abuse and the black market that allows people to sell species for slaughter, as has occurred for decades at Sonora Market.
The Looming Legal Battle
Once the deadline for the removal of live animal vendors in public markets that do not comply with current legal provisions in Mexico City is met, a new legal battle is anticipated, according to Susana Ramírez Terrazas, lawyer, activist, and founder of the ‘Va por sus Derechos’ association.
“A legal battle is expected, but in this legal battle, we are confident that we will win once again because there are already precedents. Today, there are already theses that cite the fundamental rights of other animals,” Ramírez Terrazas stated.
The activist referred to the thesis “Sentient beings in Mexico City. The exception to the general rule of allowing the sale of live animals in places that comply with regulations is not extensive to public markets,” published in the Judicial Weekly of the Federation. This thesis cites amparo review number 167/2024, which recognizes the omissions of capital authorities in failing to report and prevent irregular sales and animal abuse at Sonora Market.
Ramírez Terrazas explained to Reporte Índigo that the upcoming fight should not take as long as it did to enforce the existing law in the case of Sonora Market. “It should not be so long because there are already foundations, precedents, legislations, and situations that protect the life, dignity, and rights of other animals,” she emphasized.
Regarding the resistance shown by the guild of live animal vendors in public markets, the lawyer recalled that the Mexico City Animal Protection and Welfare Law already stipulated requirements such as the presence of a veterinary doctor to certify the health and conditions of animals in these establishments, a situation she stressed “Sonora Market does not comply with.”
Ramírez Terrazas added that it is not a matter of persecution against a particular guild or belief, but an effort to enforce the law and the rights currently granted to non-human animals by local and federal legislations. “You cannot partially comply with the law, or partially comply with a sentence, just as you cannot kill a chicken because your partner left you; what fault is it of the chicken?” she added.
Finally, the activist called on local authorities to comply with the judicial resolution issued last August. “I call for an end to the sale of animals that are being abused, overcrowded, and exploited. Mexico City is a pioneer with the bullfighting situation, and with Sonora Market, it must also be a pioneer in stopping animal suffering,” she concluded.
Sonora Market Vendors Accuse Evelyn Parra of ‘Betrayal’
Organizations, vendors, and veterinary medicine specialists have accused the authorities of the Venustiano Carranza borough, led by Evelyn Parra, of “betraying public markets.” They allege that Parra ceded to “pressure from minority groups seeking to prohibit the lawful and regulated trade of pets and companion animals” in Mexico City.
“It seems that the law is selective and that the mayor seeks a media victory rather than a legal one,” stated Alberto Vargas Lucio, president of the National Movement of Social Taxpayers (Monacoso), who noted that the conflict is not being mediated, and the aim is to prevent the legal sale of live animals in Sonora Market.
For her part, Aída Álvarez, president of the College of Veterinary Zootechnicians of Mexico, recalled that Parra announced actions from January 2, 2026, to eliminate animal sales in Sonora Market and subsequently in all markets within the demarcation. However, she questioned why verifications with trained personnel have not been conducted.
“No competent authority has carried out verifications with trained personnel regarding the health or welfare of animals for sale in Sonora Market or any other,” she emphasized.
The organizations and vendors argued that the sale of animals should not be prohibited in public markets, bazaars, and public spaces, as long as they comply with Articles 28 and 28 Bis of the Mexico City Animal Protection Law, which they affirmed is met in the said venue.
Álvarez pointed out that the true illegality and clandestine wildlife trade are committed by street vendors tolerated by the authorities of the demarcation, not by the stallholders. “They seem untouchable, even when they keep animals in plain sight on public roads.”
Furthermore, local deputy for the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico, Jesús Sesma, now president of the Mexico City Congress’s Board of Directors, was accused of imposing the ban against the legal animal trade as a political banner. The Venustiano Carranza borough and other capital authorities were also accused of “leaving thousands of citizens without legal employment.”
Source: https://www.reporteindigo.com/cdmx/venta-de-animales-en-mercado-de-sonora-agota-sus-dias-antes-de-la-prohibicion-20251211-0111.html
