Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

"Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.

Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.

But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun."

Couldn't they have simply neutered the animal? And what exactly is the "threat of inbreeding" for animals in captivity? Is an inbred giraffe in a zoo something we are supposed to worry about?

Also I find this a bit strange:

"Live footage of his body being dissected was streamed by Ekstra Bladet, showing zoo workers wearing green rubber gloves carrying out the dissection while an announcer guided the crowd through the process and fielded questions. Some of the meat was later fed to lions at the zoo."

I'm all for teaching kids the circle of life and all that but having kids gather around to watch a giraffe being butchers seems strange.

Mom - "Ooh kids! get your jackets on! Wanna go see Marius gutted?!"

Kids - "Yaaaay!"

lizzie · Feb 10, 2014

On thd surface, it certainly seems crazy and unnecessary to me. Wtf?

TheNextEra · Feb 10, 2014

Yeah, the whole thing was seven levels of screwed up. Other zoos would have taken the animal, but instead let's chop him up in little pieces in front of the kids and feed the remains to the lion.

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

TheNextEra said:
Yeah, the whole thing was seven levels of screwed up. Other zoos would have taken the animal, but instead let's chop him up in little pieces in front of the kids and feed the remains to the lion.

It's like someone was bound and determined to finally satisfy a sick fetish, logic and reason be damned!

Lerxst · Feb 10, 2014

On the surface it is disturbing. But there was a reason the animal was not transferred or sold. Here is some insight.

BBC News - Why did Copenhagen Zoo kill its giraffe?

Why not move Marius?
The Copenhagen Zoo had turned down offers from at least two other zoos to take Marius and an offer from a private individual who wanted to buy the giraffe for 500,000 euros ($680,000).

A spokesman for the institute, Tobias Stenbaek Bro, told AP that a significant part of EAZA membership is that the zoos don't own the animals themselves, but govern them, and therefore can't sell them to anyone outside the organisation that doesn't follow the same set of rules.

He said the zoo had followed the recommendation of the EAZA to put down Marius because there were already a lot of giraffes with similar genes in the organisation's breeding programme.

Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director, said it had turned down an offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK, which is a member of EAZA, because Marius' older brother lives there and the park's space could be better used by a "genetically more valuable giraffe".

EAZA said it supported the zoo's decision to "humanely put the animal down and believes strongly in the need for genetic and demographic management within animals in human care".

Carjosse · Feb 10, 2014

TheNextEra said:
Yeah, the whole thing was seven levels of screwed up. Other zoos would have taken the animal, but instead let's chop him up in little pieces in front of the kids and feed the remains to the lion.

Well from what I understand they could not just ship him to another zoo because other European zoos also have an inbreeding problem. Not saying I agree but they do have a reason for it, wouldn't, I don't know, neutering the giraffe solve the problem?

sawyerloggingon · Feb 10, 2014

That is truly some sick and twisted ***.

TheNextEra · Feb 10, 2014

Carjosse said:
Well from what I understand they could not just ship him to another zoo because other European zoos also have an inbreeding problem. Not saying I agree but they do have a reason for it, wouldn't, I don't know, neutering the giraffe solve the problem?

Other zoos were offering to help though. They just didn't want to ship it to them.

Ben K. · Feb 10, 2014

No problem with the public autopsy. There was a show in the UK and Ireland quite recently where autopsies were performed on a bunch of different animals. It was a very interesting coming from a biological background. No one was forced to view the autopsy after all.

ABOUT THE SHOW
The four one-hour episodes will see leading biologists and veterinary scientists dissecting some of the largest animals on the planet, examining not just their biology but their ev...

Animal Autopsy will delve under the skin of the world's largest animals to reveal their unique anatomy and unravel their evolutionary secrets. Most wildlife documentaries show you how animals behave, but by exploring inside nature's giants we emerge with a deeper understanding of how these animals work. We will discover how elephants are able to consume so much food; why crocodiles have such an incredibly strong bite; why giraffes have such a long neck and why the closest living relative of the whale is a hippo. This is Natural History as you have never seen it before - from the inside out.

http://natgeotv.com/asia/animal-autopsy

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

"Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.

Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.

But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun."

Couldn't they have simply neutered the animal? And what exactly is the "threat of inbreeding" for animals in captivity? Is an inbred giraffe in a zoo something we are supposed to worry about?

Yes, if you are concerned about long term captive species management, it is definitely something you need to be concerned with

CanadaJohn · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

"Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.

Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.

But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun."

Couldn't they have simply neutered the animal? And what exactly is the "threat of inbreeding" for animals in captivity? Is an inbred giraffe in a zoo something we are supposed to worry about?

Also I find this a bit strange:

"Live footage of his body being dissected was streamed by Ekstra Bladet, showing zoo workers wearing green rubber gloves carrying out the dissection while an announcer guided the crowd through the process and fielded questions. Some of the meat was later fed to lions at the zoo."

I'm all for teaching kids the circle of life and all that but having kids gather around to watch a giraffe being butchers seems strange.

Mom - "Ooh kids! get your jackets on! Wanna go see Marius gutted?!"

Kids - "Yaaaay!"

I'm not a big fan of unnecessary death to any being - I suppose it is honorable that they at least used the giraffe to feed the lions in the zoo, similar to the lions' diet in the wild. I still find it objectionable, however, that they allowed inbred mating in the zoo environment where such things are highly managed and then decided to destroy the product of that mismanagement.

I would note, at the risk of being ungenerous, that there's likely a fair bit of inbreeding going on within the Danish royal family as well, as with much of the European royals, with no "culling" of that herd.

mak2 · Feb 10, 2014

Was it tasty?

TheNextEra said:
Yeah, the whole thing was seven levels of screwed up. Other zoos would have taken the animal, but instead let's chop him up in little pieces in front of the kids and feed the remains to the lion.

TheNextEra · Feb 10, 2014

mak2 said:
Was it tasty?

Tastes like chicken.

Travis007 · Feb 10, 2014

insanity... heartbreaking..

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

CanadaJohn said:
I'm not a big fan of unnecessary death to any being - I suppose it is honorable that they at least used the giraffe to feed the lions in the zoo, similar to the lions' diet in the wild. I still find it objectionable, however, that they allowed inbred mating in the zoo environment where such things are highly managed and then decided to destroy the product of that mismanagement.

I would note, at the risk of being ungenerous, that there's likely a fair bit of inbreeding going on within the Danish royal family as well, as with much of the European royals, with no "culling" of that herd.

the animal itself might not be a case of inbreeding, but that any potential pairing would produce such offspring.

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

Dr. Chuckles said:
Yes, if you are concerned about long term captive species management, it is definitely something you need to be concerned with

Then "don't breed the giraffe" seems like a better solution than "shoot the giraffe".

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Then "don't breed the giraffe" seems like a better solution than "shoot the giraffe".

Unless we acknowledge that zoos have limited space and resources. And that instead of housing a genetic dead end, that such space would be better utilized by a specimen of genetic value.

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

Dr. Chuckles said:
Unless we acknowledge that zoos have limited space and resources. And that instead of housing a genetic dead end, that such space would be better utilized by a specimen of genetic value.

Other zoos had offered to take the giraffe. I'm not buying the excuse because the reality is that there were any number of actions the zoo could have taken but chose to kill the giraffe anyway.

Peter King · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

"Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.

Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.

But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun."

Couldn't they have simply neutered the animal? And what exactly is the "threat of inbreeding" for animals in captivity? Is an inbred giraffe in a zoo something we are supposed to worry about?

Also I find this a bit strange:

"Live footage of his body being dissected was streamed by Ekstra Bladet, showing zoo workers wearing green rubber gloves carrying out the dissection while an announcer guided the crowd through the process and fielded questions. Some of the meat was later fed to lions at the zoo."

I'm all for teaching kids the circle of life and all that but having kids gather around to watch a giraffe being butchers seems strange.

Mom - "Ooh kids! get your jackets on! Wanna go see Marius gutted?!"

Kids - "Yaaaay!"

Maybe they could have added it to an all male group as they have in the Netherlands, but neutering is not an option. If you leave it in the group and he then topples his dad, he will not allow other bulls to mate with his women and that would mean that he would then have to be removed from the group, because a neutered bull does not produce off spring.

The way they killed it was a bit brutal, I think electro shocking it like they do with bulls/cattle would have been a lot better (and then maybe shooting him in the head). Euthanasia with drugs was not an option from what I know because it would have made the meat useless. The meat eating animals would not have been able to eat the meat if it had been dispatched in that manner.

Having the kids around and showing how it was being butchered was a mistake IMHO, they should have done that without an audience. There is already a petition in Denmark to have the director of the zoo fired for his decision to kill the young giraffe.

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Other zoos had offered to take the giraffe. I'm not buying the excuse because the reality is that there were any number of actions the zoo could have taken but chose to kill the giraffe anyway.

I think it was mentioned earlier that zoos, when they are art of a professional organization, like the AZA, do not "own" their animals, they simply manage them. This is to maximize breeding programs for rare, large, and difficult to keep animals. Also, zoos tend to be reluctant to release their animals into the public due to a number of concerns, from fueling the exotics market to helping mask poaching and smuggling programs.

PS would you care if it was a fish or a deer?

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

Dr. Chuckles said:
I think it was mentioned earlier that zoos, when they are art of a professional organization, like the AZA, do not "own" their animals, they simply manage them. This is to maximize breeding programs for rare, large, and difficult to keep animals. Also, zoos tend to be reluctant to release their animals into the public due to a number of concerns, from fueling the exotics market to helping mask poaching and smuggling programs.

Not an issue when it was other zoos requesting the animal.

PS would you care if it was a fish or a deer?

Interesting question! I do have a hierarchy, I guess. I would care less if it was a fish than a deer and less for a deer than a giraffe. In the same way that I care more about a fish than a worm, and a worm more than an amoeba. Not all living things are the same in my view.

With regards to the kids it's more just the unsanitary nature of splitting an animal that large open close to toddlers and having the blood run under their feet. It's just gross.

Would you care more if it were a chimpanzee, dolphin or whale?

Edit: I would also point out that it didn't help the zoo's PR nightmare to give the giraffe a name if they were planning to destroy it.

PeteEU · Feb 10, 2014

As a Dane I am a shamed of my country over this.. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. I understand the idea of preventing inbreeding and so on, but a public autopsy... that is just sick.

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

jmotivator said:
Not an issue when it was other zoos requesting the animal.

from the first page: <<<A spokesman for the institute, Tobias Stenbaek Bro, told AP that a significant part of EAZA membership is that the zoos don't own the animals themselves, but govern them, and therefore can't sell them to anyone outside the organisation that doesn't follow the same set of rules.

He said the zoo had followed the recommendation of the EAZA to put down Marius because there were already a lot of giraffes with similar genes in the organisation's breeding programme.

Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director, said it had turned down an offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK, which is a member of EAZA, because Marius' older brother lives there and the park's space could be better used by a "genetically more valuable giraffe">>>

Zoos outside of the EAZA would be considered the public

Not all living things are the same in my view.

Click to expand...

Of course not, but a deer and giraffe are pretty similar and expect your objection is more fueled by sentimentality than anything rational

Would you care more if it were a chimpanzee, dolphin or whale?

Click to expand...

No

Click to expand...

Dr. Chuckles · Feb 10, 2014

PeteEU said:
As a Dane I am a shamed of my country over this.. I have no idea what the hell they were thinking. I understand the idea of preventing inbreeding and so on, but a public autopsy... that is just sick.

why? No one was forced to be there any many people would probably love attending something like that

jmotivator · Feb 10, 2014

Dr. Chuckles said:
He said the zoo had followed the recommendation of the EAZA to put down Marius because there were already a lot of giraffes with similar genes in the organisation's breeding programme.

So take the giraffe off of the breeding program. Why is that so difficult?

Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director, said it had turned down an offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK, which is a member of EAZA, because Marius' older brother lives there and the park's space could be better used by a "genetically more valuable giraffe.

Why is the director of the Copenhagen zoo trying to manage the Yorkshire Wildlife Park? Why can't he accept that, as a fellow EAZA member, that they can make their own accommodations based on their own facility?

Zoos outside of the EAZA would be considered the public

Sterilize the giraffe and send him to a private zoo. Problem solved.

Of course not, but a deer and giraffe are pretty similar and expect your objection is more fueled by sentimentality than anything rational

I'm fairly sentimental when it comes to all living things. I'm not a big fan of killing anything without some rational purpose. Ignoring alternatives to death is not a rational or humane way of thinking. In this case it appears like a douche bag in Copenhagen really just wanted the giraffe dead, to hell with the alternatives, and made it happen, ya know, for the kids...

No

Sad.

Copenhagen zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe named Marius

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