Killing of U.S. biologist adds to rising violence against scientists in Mexico

[Judi Lynn]

by Astrid Arellano on 4 August 2023 | Translated by Maxwell Radwin

Gabriel Trujillo, a biologist from the U.S. with roots in Mexico, was shot and killed in the northeastern state of Sonora, Mexico, while collecting plant samples for his Ph.D. research.

It’s the third fatal incident committed against researchers studying the environment in different parts of Mexico in recent years.

Biologists from California and Sonora received threats just for looking for Trujillo, who was a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gabriel Trujillo was unstoppable when it came to studying nature. Botany, his passion, led him to explore lots of places while cataloging plants and their behaviors. In June 2023, that research took him from California to the mountains of Sonora in northeastern Mexico in hopes of finding Cephalanthus occidentalis, a shrub that was crucial to his work. That trip would also end with his violent death.

Trujillo’s body was found with several bullet wounds on Thursday, June 22, on the side of a road connecting San Nicolás to Tepoca, in the municipality of Yécora. The 31-year-old scientist had been killed three days prior, on June 19, the same day his family had reported him missing.

After losing communication with Trujillo, other biologists in Sonora and California started to look for him. They called around, organized a WhatsApp group, traveled to the area where he was last seen, and interviewed people who knew about his stay in Sonora. Even though they started receiving death threats, they didn’t stop until he was found.



Trujillo was hoping to reconnect with his Ópata Indigenous roots. Image by Roxy Cruz via GoFundMe.

One Mexican biologist who helped in the search for Trujillo and who is not being named here for his safety, said death threats started coming in after he and other scientists filed a complaint about the disappearance.

More:
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/killing-of-u-s-biologist-adds-to-rising-violence-against-scientists-in-mexico/