On Sunday morning Marius, a healthy 18 month old male giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark was shot dead with a bolt pistol before having his body publicly dissected in front of several school aged children and then fed to the zoo's lions despite protests. Marius's plight sparked a wave of protests as soon as what the zoo was going to do was announced including several offers from other facilities to take him (one private individual offered 500,000 euros to save him) and a petition that included 20,000 signatures but unfortunately the campaign failed.
But why?
Officials at the Copenhagen Zoo say that they euthanized Marius in order to prevent inbreeding. The Giraffes at the zoo are part of an international breeding program known as the EEP or European Endangered Species Programme which is supposed to be designed to regulate the captive population among zoos that are members of the EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) which currently houses about 300 member zoos. According to the zoo, although Marius himself was not inbred in particular, his parents had already produced other offspring making their genetics already sufficiently represented within the population and thus making Marius a "surplus animal". But this has lead me to question: If the zoo knew that Marius's genes were already represented enough within the captive population, why were his parents allowed to reproduce to begin with? How come contraceptives were not administered in order to prevent Marius from even being born if they knew that he was eventually going to be discarded? Here is what the zoo's Scientific Director Bengt Holst had to say:
“In Copenhagen Zoo we let the animals breed naturally. With naturally we mean that they will get young within the same intervals as they would in the wild. That means that the animals get to carry out their natural behaviours. Parental care is a big part of an animal’s behaviour. It is a 24 hour job in longer periods of their lives and we believe that they should still be able to carry out this type of behaviour also in captivity. Contraceptives have a number of unwanted side effects on the internal organs and we would therefore apply a poorer animal welfare if we did not euthanize.”
I think that I should now take the time to point out that, although sedating a giraffe in order to place a contraceptive inside them is risky, in more recent years a much safer way of doing so has been invented which actually allows the females to be injected with the contraceptive through being darted from a safe distance.
Also, as previously mentioned, several other places had also offered to take Marius in, but Copenhagen Zoo refused to take any of them up on their offer, saying that transferring Marius to another facility was not an option because it would cause inbreeding (at least, according to them). Since Marius was killed, several members of the zoo staff, Bengt Holst included, have been receiving death threats by telephone and email from people in protest. Also, almost as soon as Marius was killed, a petition popped up online to try and get Holst removed from his post at the zoo.
SOME PERSONAL NOTES:
The zoo claimed that a necropsy (animal equivalent to an autopsy) in front of the public for educational purposes. That it was a great way to teach them more about the anatomy of the giraffe. In my opinion it was completely barbaric and should never had happened because there were just too many other options (sending the animal to another home, castration, contraceptives....) The zoo I work with does not condone this sort of practice and they never will. There was absolutely no reason for this animal to be put down and torn apart in this manner, and in front of children above everything else. Yes, I understood even as a young child that there were animals out there who ate other animals but if I were to be taken to a zoo and had to bare witness to the sort of thing that happened to Marius I would have been permanently traumatized and never would have wanted to go back. I would have (and still would even now) been wondering why people who supposedly loved and cared about this animal as much as I did would want to have it killed when there was really no valid reason to do so.
***************************************************************************************
Here are several articles regarding Marius's death including statements from the Copenhagen Zoo and the EAZA who happened to endorse the zoo's decision, plus links to the petition that was previously mentioned among other things, including statements from well known animal advocate and television host, Jack Hanna:
NBC NEWS:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/zoo-kills-unwanted-giraffe-marius-feeds-carcass-lions-n25726
CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/02/11/ac-jack-hanna-on-copenhagen-zoo-giraffe.cnn.html
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AvBb0rbDTmXIt714RRSISVebvZx4?p=jack+hanna+lashes+out+at+copenhagen+zoo&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-901
BBC NEWS:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26118748
THE INDEPENDENT:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/copenhagen-zoo-kills-surplus-young-giraffe-marius-despite-online-petition-9117317.html
The Columbus Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/11/hanna-denounces-slaughter-of-giraffe.html
PETITION TO HAVE BENGT HOLST REMOVED FROM HIS POST AT COPENHAGEN ZOO:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/769/686/980/remove-bengt-holst-from-his-leading-position-at-copenhagen-zoo/
STATEMENT FROM COPENHAGEN ZOO REGARDING MARIUS'S DEATH:
http://uk.zoo.dk/VisitZoo.aspx
STATEMENT FROM THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF ZOOS AND AQUARIA:
http://www.eaza.net/News/newsblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=183
*Warning: The images that these articles contain are extremely graphic and some people may find them disturbing (I know I did!) therefore, viewer discretion is most certainly advised.
But why?
Officials at the Copenhagen Zoo say that they euthanized Marius in order to prevent inbreeding. The Giraffes at the zoo are part of an international breeding program known as the EEP or European Endangered Species Programme which is supposed to be designed to regulate the captive population among zoos that are members of the EAZA (European Association of Zoos and Aquaria) which currently houses about 300 member zoos. According to the zoo, although Marius himself was not inbred in particular, his parents had already produced other offspring making their genetics already sufficiently represented within the population and thus making Marius a "surplus animal". But this has lead me to question: If the zoo knew that Marius's genes were already represented enough within the captive population, why were his parents allowed to reproduce to begin with? How come contraceptives were not administered in order to prevent Marius from even being born if they knew that he was eventually going to be discarded? Here is what the zoo's Scientific Director Bengt Holst had to say:
“In Copenhagen Zoo we let the animals breed naturally. With naturally we mean that they will get young within the same intervals as they would in the wild. That means that the animals get to carry out their natural behaviours. Parental care is a big part of an animal’s behaviour. It is a 24 hour job in longer periods of their lives and we believe that they should still be able to carry out this type of behaviour also in captivity. Contraceptives have a number of unwanted side effects on the internal organs and we would therefore apply a poorer animal welfare if we did not euthanize.”
I think that I should now take the time to point out that, although sedating a giraffe in order to place a contraceptive inside them is risky, in more recent years a much safer way of doing so has been invented which actually allows the females to be injected with the contraceptive through being darted from a safe distance.
Also, as previously mentioned, several other places had also offered to take Marius in, but Copenhagen Zoo refused to take any of them up on their offer, saying that transferring Marius to another facility was not an option because it would cause inbreeding (at least, according to them). Since Marius was killed, several members of the zoo staff, Bengt Holst included, have been receiving death threats by telephone and email from people in protest. Also, almost as soon as Marius was killed, a petition popped up online to try and get Holst removed from his post at the zoo.
SOME PERSONAL NOTES:
The zoo claimed that a necropsy (animal equivalent to an autopsy) in front of the public for educational purposes. That it was a great way to teach them more about the anatomy of the giraffe. In my opinion it was completely barbaric and should never had happened because there were just too many other options (sending the animal to another home, castration, contraceptives....) The zoo I work with does not condone this sort of practice and they never will. There was absolutely no reason for this animal to be put down and torn apart in this manner, and in front of children above everything else. Yes, I understood even as a young child that there were animals out there who ate other animals but if I were to be taken to a zoo and had to bare witness to the sort of thing that happened to Marius I would have been permanently traumatized and never would have wanted to go back. I would have (and still would even now) been wondering why people who supposedly loved and cared about this animal as much as I did would want to have it killed when there was really no valid reason to do so.
***************************************************************************************
Here are several articles regarding Marius's death including statements from the Copenhagen Zoo and the EAZA who happened to endorse the zoo's decision, plus links to the petition that was previously mentioned among other things, including statements from well known animal advocate and television host, Jack Hanna:
NBC NEWS:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/zoo-kills-unwanted-giraffe-marius-feeds-carcass-lions-n25726
CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2014/02/11/ac-jack-hanna-on-copenhagen-zoo-giraffe.cnn.html
https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AvBb0rbDTmXIt714RRSISVebvZx4?p=jack+hanna+lashes+out+at+copenhagen+zoo&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-901
BBC NEWS:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26118748
THE INDEPENDENT:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/copenhagen-zoo-kills-surplus-young-giraffe-marius-despite-online-petition-9117317.html
The Columbus Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/11/hanna-denounces-slaughter-of-giraffe.html
PETITION TO HAVE BENGT HOLST REMOVED FROM HIS POST AT COPENHAGEN ZOO:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/769/686/980/remove-bengt-holst-from-his-leading-position-at-copenhagen-zoo/
STATEMENT FROM COPENHAGEN ZOO REGARDING MARIUS'S DEATH:
http://uk.zoo.dk/VisitZoo.aspx
STATEMENT FROM THE EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF ZOOS AND AQUARIA:
http://www.eaza.net/News/newsblog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=183
*Warning: The images that these articles contain are extremely graphic and some people may find them disturbing (I know I did!) therefore, viewer discretion is most certainly advised.
