Zoo kills giraffe, feeds it to the lions, tears of rage flood the net

[Joey McGee]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/copenhagen-zoo-kills-giraffe-marius-to-prevent-inbreeding-1.2529522

The only problem I have with this is that they missed a serious opportunity to answer the question "What does bbq giraffe taste like?" Yeah lions eat giraffes... but so do humans! Could have turned a tiny profit there...

And this is why zoos are heavily regulated and usually belong to elite associations because if you let the public decide how we manage animals, everything would be **********.

Hey, for those of you that are seriously shocked, here is a video of a giraffe killing a lion.

 

[MikeG]

The reason people are so upset is that the zoo had numerous offers from serious establishments to buy the giraffe from them, avoiding the necessity to kill it. It is difficult to understand why they didn't take this route.

Mike

 

[The_Fire]

The reason people are so upset is that the zoo had numerous offers from serious establishments to buy the giraffe from them, avoiding the necessity to kill it. It is difficult to understand why they didn't take this route.

Mike

Genetic lineage and possible inbreeding comes to mind. The english zoo that turned up in the last minute, for instance, already had a male giraffe originating from the same flock. This means that at very least the sire was the same making Marius and the flock leader half brothers. This could lead to problems with inbreeding. Add to that the limited amount of giraffe flocks and you risk decades of breeding programs which in themselves aim at preserving the species. Then theres the fact that giraffes aren't just giraffes but have several sub-species (8 I think) and that possible contaminating one of these lines with DNA from a different line is a baad idea from a presevation point of view and suddenly the field narrows.

Add to that the fact that Marius was almost sexually mature with all the accompanying agression towards other males, not to mention their agression towards a foreign rival, and the field narrows to:

- Flocks that are unrelated and are not being contemplated for future breeding with the Copenhagen flock and haven't been breed with it long enough to prevent inbreeding
- FLocks of the same sub-species
- Flocks without a male leader or alternatively a flock with a severly aging male where MArius would not be isolated long enough to take mental damage before the old alpha croaks

Thats a pretty *********** narrow amount of flocks.

Now add the fact that most zoos dont neuter or use contraceptives on giraffes (afaik that is, from what I understand something about avoiding interfering with their natural biology as much as possible) and you have a problem.

Marius simply weren't that valuable from a breeding point of view and it would have been cruel to keep him from a flock in the long run.

 

[drelda]

The reason people are so upset is that the zoo had numerous offers from serious establishments to buy the giraffe from them, avoiding the necessity to kill it. It is difficult to understand why they didn't take this route.

It seems the zoo had a constraint that it wasn't allowed to sell/give animals to anyone outside its association - which probably makes sense - it would be irresponsible for them to put animals in the care of random people.

Within the zoo association - they are trying to protect the genetic diversity of the population - i.e. avoid over-breeding. Whenever people breed animals they need to worry about this - its the same issue for farm animals, dogs, whatever. If you want to protect the long term health of the animals you have to make sure there isn't too much in-breeding. Sometimes this means an animal has to be put down - but I think this comes with the territory.

Personally I don't have a problem with this case (from a brief read of the story at least - there may be more to it than I know).

Also - as far as feeding the dead giraffe to lions is concerned - then why not? The lions are going to be fed other dead animals by the zoo - and giraffe is surely a normal part of a lions diet in the wild.

Seems to me that the zoo is just being straightforward about the reality of keeping and breeding animals - i.e. sometimes they have to be put down, and predators have to be fed dead animals. I can respect the point of view that says we shouldn't be keeping animals in captivity at all - but if you think zoos are generally OK but don't like this story then I fear you are fooling yourself about the realities.

- Drelda

 

[Rasmus]

The reason people are so upset is that the zoo had numerous offers from serious establishments to buy the giraffe from them, avoiding the necessity to kill it. It is difficult to understand why they didn't take this route.

Mike

They did say that if not for the Giraffe, a horse would have been killed and fed to the lions. Probably not killed at the zoo, but these are not vegetarian lions whichever way you look at it, and there isn't much roadkill-horse around, either.

So, some animal was going to be fed to the lions that day. Why not use a tastey Giraffe that you already have and want to get rid of anyway?

I wonder if they sell sausages at the zoo, and what people think of that ...

 

[JoeMorgue]

Giraffes aren't endangered, it was killed humanely, its remains were put to good use, and the whole thing was used as an (albeit sorta weird in tone) teaching moment.

I can't say it would be my preferred end for the animal, as others have said I'm a little confused as to why other Zoo's offers to take the animal weren't entertained but it's possible there is a factor in there I'm not aware of, but at absolute worst his is a weird and imperfect act, not an evil one.

If it were a cow we wouldn't be haven this discussion. If the animal were killed in private we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I might not be 100% comfortable with this, but my outage is severely limited.

 

[Damien Evans]

I wonder what Giraffe tastes like.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I wonder what Giraffe tastes like.

Pretty good apparently.

Giraffe? It's the height of fine dining, says Hugh

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/f...Its-height-fine-dining-says-TV-chef-Hugh.html

 

[MikeG]

Giraffes aren't endangered......

Some are. There are 9 sub-species, and an on-going debate as to whether 6 of them are actually separate species, rather than sub-species. The West African, Nubian and the Rothschild giraffes are highly endangered.

-

Thanks for all the explanations, folks. You may have fallen into the trap of assuming that I was being all sentimental about the giraffe, whereas I started by saying "The reason people are so upset......." as an explanation of why other people, not me, are upset by this event.

What does it taste like? OK, really, but I struggled to tell it apart from the zebra on the same plate.

 

[Joey McGee]

The inevitable death threats by telephone and email have started against the staff. The moral shaming against cutting the animal up in front of children has commenced. Hey it's ok to serve your child a cut of beef, or show it a diagram of an animals organs, but not to actually cut up an animal for the purposes of scientific discovery, how inhuman! lol

 

[MikeG]

The purposes of scientific discovery?! What? They're feeding it to the lions, not analysing it.

 

[marplots]

Lions. Murderous scum, every single one.

 

[Joey McGee]

The purposes of scientific discovery?! What? They're feeding it to the lions, not analysing it.

They have said that they perform an autopsy on all animals that die at the zoo, no matter the size or species, and that parts of the giraffe have been sent to away to be analyzed, not all of it fed to the lions, and they were answering questions from the crowd watching explaining what was going on, the purpose of doing it in front of a crowd was to educate them, so you're wrong on every possible level.

 

[catsmate]

Years ago when I attended my first meeting of the (then Royal) Zoological Society of Ireland as a member I proposed the introduction of live sheep, rabbits et cetera into the compounds of the large carnivores. This would, I suggested, give those carnivores such exercise, educate passers-bye and reduce storage costs as the food supply could be kept penned rather than frozen.
It was not adopted.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I actually felt sorta bad for the National Zoo's two cheetah's recently.

About a month back a White Tailed Deer jumped into the cheetah enclosure and... well exactly what you think would happened happened. The zoo keepers, not totally without reason I guess, took the carcass away before the cheetahs could eat it citing that they couldn't be sure the animal wasn't sick or diseased.

Still given that in the wild very similar animals like Thompson and Grant's Gazelles, Impalas, and Springbok's make us the bulk of their diet I can't imagine they wouldn't have enjoyed their meal if given the chance.

 

[Dragonrock]

They have said that they perform an autopsy on all animals (snip)

Autopsy on humans, necropsy on all other animals.

Now if you'll excuse me I must go tell the grocery store it should be "12 items or FEWER."

Also, I watched a show on NatGeo that had footage of a group of juvenile lions eating the guts out of a still live water buffalo. IIRC the buffalo lived for an hour all the while having its guts chewed on. Nature is far crueler than most people can even imagine.

 

[Jekyll's Guest]

Autopsy on humans, necropsy on all other animals.

Now if you'll excuse me I must go tell the grocery store it should be "12 items or FEWER."

 

[Rat]

I bought some zebra steaks recently, and the place I got them does giraffe as well. I may well try it. In fact, they will do custom built multibeast/bird roasts, including with giraffe, but I don't think my oven's big enough.

 

[Rolfe]

I can't see what was wrong about this in any conceivable way, always assuming that the people who witnessed the post mortem were willing informed participants and not just random passers-by.

However, I was just chatting with an SSPCA officer who came here to deliver a cat for post mortem, and she said she had seen an interview with a zoo spokesman which was a bit on the undiplomatic side, to put it politely. So maybe that's what's sparked some of the outrage.

Rolfe.

 

[AlBell]

Lions. Murderous scum, every single one.

Ban them!