Zoo København Marius - Giraffe at Copenhagen

While I feel the arguments on both sides - and there are excellent arguments for culling, and for not culling - have been made well, I think the refutation of this point, made several times, has not been made.

The implication here, from @zooish (and previously from others) is that the breeding of an unwanted calf must have been a mistake, due to poor management.

However, there is an argument which would suggest that the raising of young is a vital part of the natural behaviour of a captive animal, and as such is the best form of behavioural enrichment. Thus, stopping animals from breeding simply because it will not be possible to house the young might be seen as being irresponsible and even, to use an emotive word used many times in this debate, cruel. Far more humane to allow animals to mate, breed, raise young, and then, at the time when, in the wild, the young would leave the parent(s), humanely cull those youngsters....

I appreciate, of course, that other opinions are available.....

 

Just to address 2 points, the zoo in question is quite far north in Sweden at the same latitude as Alaska and Yukon. In my view if zoochatters heard that a single giraffe was being sent to such a location there would be uproar...

It doesn't set a precedent, Copenhagen Zoo euthanises ungulates and feeds them to carnivores on a regular basis and public necropsies/disections are also done. It's nothing new.

I do agree about the naming, that's the main thing I feel the zoo did wrong.

 

Did not seen the online video of autopsy, but had they really fed the whole leg to lions, without removing the bones to preserve them?!

 

The zoo put a statement in English on its website.
http://zoo.dk/BesogZoo/Nyhedsarkiv/2014/Februar/Why Copenhagen Zoo euthanized a giraffe.aspx

I am shocked that contraception or vasectomy is not even tried. They are common management tools, and certainly more ethical than certainity of death. Similar approach to breeding dogs or cats would be prohibited.

In practice, this 'letting animals breed naturally' is the same as cynical producing young animals for public and destroying them when they are no longer cute.

I think Copenhagen Zoo with its extremely careless attitude to killing zoo animals very much strengthened anti-zoo movement worldwide.

 

I completely agree. The public in China enjoys throwing live cows and chicken to tigers as 'interesting' 'educational' even 'allowing natural behaviour'. But this does not make it ethical.

 

How do you suppose to throw a cow?

 

passive Danes allow their viking blood lust to surface.

I am a first generation scandanavian american who has worked with and kept exotic animals all my life. I am an omnivoure not squimish nor am I an animal rights activities. I must laugh at this really stupid episode which is not reality in the wild. If the naive Danes want to experience their viking past animal killing and feeding to other animals with their children , they should go to slaughter house/abbatour and directly participate. The staff and director of the zoo should undergo psychiatric testing. This really stupid situation will give super power to the animal right activists who are dominated by their irrational emotional handicapped mentality and totally antizoo. The european zoo federation should place sanctions on this facility for its irresponsible action. Get Real.

 

Considering that this slaughter of Marius the giraffe took place in Denmark, it has certainly hit the headlines not only in Europe but throughout the world, that is the era we now live in with the internet years ago we would have been none the wiser. Several friends and work mates today have mentioned this incident in conversation, they are neither zoo enthusiasts nor animal rights supporters, just normal Joe Public on the Clapham omnibus. Everyone who has mentioned this has been disgusted at what has happened at Copenhagen, the one person who was most disgusted was an ex slaughterman who found it repulsive that the giraffe carcass was butchered in front of visitor's children, and he also asked why Marius was not put down by lethal injection instead of the bolt pistol just to feed his carcass to the lions uncontaminated. My first concern is for the dead giraffe itself, secondly for all the other animal that live in this very strange place. It also causes me to wonder what repercussions may result from this for reputable zoos who would never dream of involving themselves, or indeed their animals in this disgusting, weird repulsive practice, very unfair if decent zoos get the backlash.