Ethics in zoos and farms - a response to Toddy

Apologies....I didn't realise you were sat there in the office with them feeling the coldness when they made the decision!

 

Again the only attitudes we can see are the ones they display. It may have something to do with the Danish to English translation (or journalistic bias) but they came across as d cks. Like I said its a PR quandary more than an ethical one.

 

So how easy is it for you to make the decision to kill something when you're out hunting? I bet it's a lot easier than when you work in an institution that's dedicated to the welfare of animals, and you cared for something it's whole life. How dare you cheapen the life of that giraffe by suggesting that the difficult but correct decision was taken lightly!

 

Personally an animal that I am connected to as a pet (closest thing to owning a Zoo I would get to) and an individual I would do everything in my power to not kill it.

Again ethics are personal, I wouldn't personally cull a healthy animal in that setting. But I would also handle the situation better. Not telling anyone would have stopped this entire controversy.

And Hunting requires a lot of individual ethics to be an ethical and responsible hunter. Raising animals for meat does as well. Again the situation with a zoo to me resembles more to do with a pet.

 

This goes far beyond the zoo or pets or anything like that. This was about managing whole captive populations internationally.....when you take that into account, the rules have to different. Your naïveté is shining if you fail to understand that much!

 

Certainly the needs to the International Captive Breeding program are what is ultimately important. But culling a genetic dead end only to replace it with another genetic dead end doesn't fit health of the captive population with that particular "space". And if we are thinking of Zoo animals as only occupying spaces should we cull any and all animals that don't fit breeding? Theorhetically Mary the Cow, is taking up a space that could hold a Scimitar Oryx. Even healthy older animals? After all they are taking up valuable "spaces". And while yes over time the (take the US) Roth/tic complex "should" be replaced by pure Masai or Reticulated giraffe would be prudent to cull all the Hybrids from the US population?

These questions don't have easy answers, that is why personal ethics comes into place. You can't simply use the Just Following Orders mentality. Denying the potential attachment and value Marius could have provided in a non breeding setting would be wrong.

 

@Tschlander, I think you need to read up more on the whole Marius situation as you appear to be a bit misinformed. First off, as stated before, there is no "breed to cull" mentality among the European zoos, or at least the accredited ones. If there was any zoo I'd label as a "breed to cull" when it comes to giraffes, it'd be South Lakes, but that's a discussion for another day I suppose. Another bit you got wrong, Copenhagen does not keep a herd of inbred hybrids, they keep a herd of pure Reticulated Giraffes.

So you feel it's okay to kill a wild animal senselessly if it has potential to harm a captive one? If so, you're agreeing with the yearly killings of countless endangered wild species like Cheetahs and Tigers. And if Marius was a wild giraffe, would it be okay to just kill him then? And if you raised Coyotes instead of bison, and a wild bison was bothering your Coyotes, would you just shoot the bison? And correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it illegal to just go out and kill an animals randomly whenever you please?

Finally, do you really think this doesn't happen in the U.S.? You just don't hear about it due to the fact that the public here would loose their sh*t if they knew. In Denmark, the public might be more open to it while here in the U.S. any zoo that publicly announced something like this would surely be in danger of having to close down due to the reaction. Now I could give you specific examples, but I won't, as I'm sure at least one anti-zoo party reads these forums and the more we argue and throw out evidenceless fact and misconceptions on here, the more ammo we give them.


@Dean, first and foremost, I'm very, very sorry for your loss. I know what it's like to lose a loved one to a disease they'd been struggling with for a long time so understand how that must have been.

Secondly, it's true that Marius was on the surplus list for a long time and the studbook keepers tried very hard to find him a home but no zoos would take him. The zoos that offered at the last minute surely did it as a publicity stunt at the last minute knowing it was too late. Unfortunately, this has created a very troublesome situation even worst for Copenhagen.


And, as a final point to everyone, many of you talk about how devastating this must have been for the children and people who were in attendance (even though they were all there voluntarily, knew what they would be seeing, and were not there when Marius was put down) and how the people of Denmark must be feeling about but have any of you noticed how none of them are complaining? Have you noticed that all of the rioting and slander of the zoo (or at least the vast majority) has come out of other countries? You don't know how these people feel about this kind of thing and whether or not they find it interesting that the zoo is so honest with them so don't go around making claims about them or, in the case of some of you, bash these people. Just worry about your own zoos in your own countries, or at least the ones that are really doing captive animals injustice.

~Thylo

 

And where would he be giving this non-breeding setting? I don't know if you've been listening, but all zoos that were asked by the studbook refused to take him, and none came forward on their own!

~Thylo

 

This is done with this Marius example, as has been said multiple times in this topic...

And just don't telling is also not the right solution imo, because then you in fact say that you have not a good explanation, which is there. But press just twists the good explanation into some populist statement....

I wanted to write something much longer but the battery of my laptop does not allow it here...

 

The discussion about the relationship between humans and animals has been going on for centuries and took a turn to the worse when natural science was established.

As far as the Zoo Copenhagen is concerned I cannot see any country bashing, people in different countries obviously perceive and handle animals differently.

While the USA has an approach that still leads to attractive zoos with animals that don't appear different to their European counterparts, some zoos in Europe seem also to be able to avoid culling.

In Germany zoos are legally obliged to refrain from culling in case of overpopulation.
Curator Klös at Berlin Zoo (if honest) is quoted: "Our zoo doesn't kill for the reasons given in Copenhagen. We use several means like contraception, separating the animals, or giving them away. Even for hoofstock we always find another zoo".
I have never noticed an animal being killed here because of age.

Some years ago, without ever having suffered a similiar public outcry as Copenhagen, the Zoo Munich even urged to establish an ethic commission, subject- killing in the zoo and feeding the kill to other animals.
A growing number of universities are teaching animal ethics.
Just as the renown institut for Theological Zoology tries to bridge the gap and for this purpose reaches out to science.

What about Copenhagen? All there seemed to be were the two announcements of the cullings, no word about ethics or dialogue.

 

I think killing the Giraffe in question was the best thing for the population, as it is important to manage populations to keep them healthy. If zoos killed more excess animals it would allow them to have younger healthier breeding animals like in nature. As zoos don't have predators killing animals like in the wild this is the best way than can copy that situation, humanely.

What would upset me more is if the zoo did not utilize the dead animal.

Managing wild populations is also important, and hunting is the best and most humane way to do this. Unlike with predators human hunting can be specific and target certain species, sex or age groups.

Managed hunting and zoos removing selected animals have the same objectives, managing numbers and keeping the populations healthy.

 

I have a quick question, does anyone know if a zoo has tried using surplus animals for input into reintroduction programs? They seem like they would be the perfect because they are animals that are readily available and their bloodline could still be represented in zoos if needed for later in the breeding programs.

 

@JBZ, maybe the gorillas of Howlets?? But further this is just way to much work and time-consuming to be a worthwile option for a zoo.

@Taisha, Berlin says they don't kill but their transports involve some dubious animal handlers and animals that do not always seem to reach their destination. In terms of animal welfare I would say it is better to euthanize then to send your animals away with such dubious persons and/or to even more dubious zoos....

 

Zoos refusing to sell or give surplus animals to private zoos keeps populations small, and causes inbreeding due to the small population of animals to breed with. This is particularly bad in Australia, as we have a small number of zoos and quarantine makes it hard to bring animals in.

If animal welfare was enforced, and people who broke the rules were prosecuted, and lost the right to keep animals, zoos would not be able to use welfare of animals they sell as an excuse for not doing so.

 

I am afraid this is true - and proven, one more reason to look forward to the first of april. But perhaps the handling described by Klös was Berlin Zoo politics even back to earlier zoo managements, as the dubious contacts seem to have been person related. I also agree that in such case euthanizing would be the better solution.

 

What's happening on April 1st?

~Thylo

 

As there seem to be some dedicated hunters around here, they may want to replace those foreign visitors who have cancelled their plans for visiting Copenhagen Zoo.

Certainly attractive not just for children:

In the Arctic Ring, where from the safety of an underwater tunnel the public can watch hulking polar bears swimming by inches above them, there's a seal-killing game for children.

"Imagine you are the polar bear. Try to catch the seal when it comes up to breathe," read the instructions, next to an image of a hole in the ice.

If you press the button at the very moment when the seal's face appears, it is replaced by a spatter of blood.
THE GUARDIAN