Meet the woman behind Mexico City's hummingbird hospital

Thirteen years ago, doctors gave her two months to live. Now cancer-free, Catia Lattouf has dedicated her life to helping other survivors both human and hummingbird.

CODY COPELAND / August 7, 2023



Catia Lattouf feeds a recovering hummingbird with an eyedropper in her Mexico City apartment that she has turned into a hummingbird sanctuary on Aug. 6, 2023. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)
MEXICO CITY (CN) — Gucci came to Catia Lattouf at a critical moment in her life.

An animal rescue organization brought the injured hummingbird to Lattouf not long after she had outlived doctors’ predictions that she had just two months left.

“This was in 2012, and I was still scared that the cancer would come back, because it hadn’t even been two years,” the 73-year-old Lattouf said, sitting in a bedroom of her third-floor apartment in the bosky, upscale neighborhood of Polanco.

“There always remains some doubt, as the doctors say it could reappear,” she said as dozens of hummingbirds hovered overhead, darting across the room to perch on houseplants, family photos and the television bolted to the wall.

Depressed and scared, Lattouf resisted getting too close to Gucci at first. But, despite having lost an eye, the little guy was determined to pull her out of her funk. He posted up in front of her computer screen and stared her down until she gave in and started to play with him.

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Catia Lattouf tells her story of becoming a hummingbird rescuer in her bedroom that she regularly shares with dozens of recovering birds on Aug. 6, 2023. (Cody Copeland/Courthouse News)

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