I thought this would be relevant, though a bit shocking. The Danish zoo Næstved Zoo has had lots of bad reps throughout the time, like allowing visitors to pet tigers, being accused of stealing rare reptiles, having a mentally ill former zookeeper commit suicide in the tiger stalls and several other things. Now the time came for the former manager Peter Bo Rasmussen. The link for the news article is here: Zoo-direktør skød sin eks-kone og sig selv - Krimi - BT.dk A rough translation of the important points for those of you who cannot read Danish: Zoo manager shoots his ex wife and himself A man went to see his former wife in Fakse, only to shoot her and himself in a family tragedy. A family tragedy claimed two victims when a man killed his ex wife and then committed suicide. According to the police, the 40 years old man Peter Bo Rasmussen went to see his ex wife at this Tuesday. She lived in a house on Hylleholtvej (road name) in Fakse (small Danish town). It is reported that the woman lived with her father. The police do not wish to explain their relationship in details. "It is a miserable tragedy," says deputy commissioner of police Søren Ravn-Nielsen. He explains that Peter Bo Rasmussen went to see his 33 years old ex wife, Anita Scheuermann, in order to have a conversation with her. It is still uncertain what they discussed. "We have yet to throw light on many aspects of the incident," says Søren Ravn-Nielsen. Unhappily it ended with the man pulling out a gun and shooting the woman in through the window. She died after being shot several times. Immediately after, Peter Bo Rasmussen decided to take his own life with the gun. An acute-treatment helicopter was called to the place, but it was not possible to save the two of them. The two of them have a young daughter, however she was not at the house during the incident. As Anita Scheuermann was the current owner of Næstved Zoo, the zoo is now forced to close.
Haven't visited but it is still open. Don't know what happened to the ownership. It doesn't look like the people now in charge (whoever they are) are planning to close it anytime soon.
Anita Scheuermann was not the owner of Naestved Zoo as the "zoo" was sold in late 2010 to a man named Spoocky Sébastien Lambert and is now called "Zoopark Sydsjælland" (Zoopark South Zealand). The zoopark still focusses on their white tigers and golden tabby tigers as their main attraction. At least they now state on their website that white tigers are NOT their own subspecies but they still advertise how rare their freak tigers are. It does not look like there has been any significant changes in the animal collection. It is still mostly domestics, common zoo animals (red-necked wallabies, bison, etc.) and the tigers. However, it is worth noticing that the zoo keeps poisonous snakes as one of only three places in Denmark. I have only visited once in 2007 when the zoo opened and have no intention of going back.
Oh, thank you for the corrections. The last line was just a summarization of the information provided by a news article that was wrote after the one I translated, so while I'm sorry that the information was wrong, it was originally the writer of the article who was mistaken. It at least stated that due to the death of the owner, the institution had to undergo a force-closure. I've not visited Næstved Zoo (or Zoopark Sydsjælland as you stated it is now called, Toddy) and I don't intend to either. Possibly only if I for some completely other reason stayed in Næstved, had a day with nothing to do and other people wanted to pay my admission. And even then I'm not sure. The only good thing I've actually heard people say about the zoo is that tiger exhibit is huge, especially for Danish standards - is that right? On the hand, all other aspects of their tiger husbandry seem to be so, to put it mildly, controversial that it doesn't really matter.
