Zoo Kills Young Giraffe, Invites Children to Watch It Be Chopped Up, Fed to Lion

[Liep]

Politicians here are fearing a "second Muhammad-crisis" referring to the cartoon predicament we found ourselves in years ago.

[Liep]

The Chechen president wants to adopt the 2nd Marius. It's been officially named "Giraf-gate".

[Tonitrus]

The Chechen president wants to adopt the 2nd Marius. It's been officially named "Giraf-gate".

Did someone tell him that it's not a miniature giraffe?

[Liep]

The Chechen president wants to adopt the 2nd Marius. It's been officially named "Giraf-gate".

Did someone tell him that it's not a miniature giraffe?

From his Instagram profile.

Дорогие друзья! Я с тревогой воспринял информацию о том, что в Дании намерены лишить жизни еще одного жирафа. Несколько дней назад в датском зоопарке Юлландс по надуманным мотивам пристрелили молодого жирафа Мариуса. Это произошло на глазах у детей. Затем устроили кровавое шоу, расчленив и скормив жирафа хищным зверям. Теперь это может повториться и с другим молодым жирафом также по имени Мариус. Исходя из соображений гуманности я готов принять Мариуса. Мы можем гарантировать ему хорошие условия содержания и заботу о его здоровье. Надеемся, что это предложение найдет положительный отклик у руководства зоопарка Юлландс! #Кадыров #Россия #Чечня #Дания #Жираф #Мариус

Because he's known for his humanitarianism.

[CountDeMoney]

Denmark: Second zoo may euthanize a giraffe named Marius
By Laura Smith-Spark and Zahra Ullah, CNN

(CNN) -- Could another zoo in Denmark kill a giraffe named Marius?

To some animal lovers, it sounds too terrible to be true, but zoo leaders say it's anything but a tall tale.

Just days after the Copenhagen Zoo killed a male giraffe named Marius to avoid inbreeding, another zoo said it might follow suit.

Jyllands Park Zoo said Thursday it may also have to "euthanize" one of its male giraffes -- coincidentally, also named Marius -- if a female is brought in to breed.

Zoologist Jesper Mohring-Jensen told CNN that Jyllands Park Zoo joined the same breeding program as the Copenhagen Zoo last year, which means it can't have too many giraffes with the same genetic makeup.

The zoo currently has two male giraffes, he said.

One, Marius, is not deemed useful to the program but is a useful companion to the genetically valuable second giraffe, which is in fact an older brother of the Marius killed in Copenhagen.

The zoo wants the second giraffe to mate, so it must bring in a female giraffe.

"At the moment, they are doing very well and are keeping each other company, but if there are some genetically more valuable giraffes in the program that need the space, we have to decide what to do with him," said Mohring-Jensen.

"We will of course try to place him in a suitable zoo, but if that is not possible, we might have to euthanize him. The program will give us notice well in advance, so I think we will have a good chance of placing him."

It's thought that no decision is imminent, "so the problem is not acute," he said.

Death threats

The killing of the Copenhagen Zoo's Marius opened wide divisions between animal lovers and zoo officials concerned about maintaining the genetic diversity of giraffes in the program.

Staff at the zoo received death threats as debate raged online over the killing, which took place despite a petition signed by thousands of animal lovers.

But Lesley Dickie, executive director of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, a European body governing 345 institutions, said those protesting were missing the point.

"I'm afraid that when we have limited space in zoos -- and it's limited because of problems in the wild, of course, and more and more animals need our help -- then we sometimes have to make these really tough decisions," he said.

'Surplus problems'

Bengt Holst, scientific director at the Copenhagen Zoo, told CNN the decision was made for the greater good of the giraffe population.

"Our giraffes are part of an international breeding program, which has a purpose of ensuring a sound and healthy population of giraffes," he said.

"It can only be done by matching the genetic composition of the various animals with the available space. ... When giraffes breed as well as they do now, then you will inevitably run into so-called surplus problems now and then."

The Copenhagen Zoo's Marius was shot by a veterinarian with a rifle as he leaned down to munch on rye bread, a favorite snack.

After a necropsy, the giraffe was dismembered in front of an audience that included children and fed to the zoo's lions, tigers and leopards.

[derspiess]

The Chechen president wants to adopt the 2nd Marius. It's been officially named "Giraf-gate".

Did someone tell him that it's not a miniature giraffe?

[The Brain]

Animal rights activists are scum.

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=5762790

Five indicted for mink farm attacks

Published: tisdag 21 januari kl 17:06 , Radio Sweden 


Five young men and women were indicted by a district court on Tuesday for numerous attacks on mink farms and their owners in different parts of the country, TT reports.

The five are accused of serious threats, arson, criminal damage and trespassing.


Three of them, a two men and one woman, are currently in custody. According to the prosecutor, the three - a 32-year-old man from Gothenburgh, 24-year old man from Örebro and a 22-year-old woman from Kumla - are behind the most serious parts of the crimes.

Among others, they tried to force a man in Hjo to abandon his plans to become a mink farmer, by sending a letter threatening the man and his family, and by visiting his house at night, attacking it with axes and crushing a window.

Another ax and a bomb that did not explode were placed in the mailbox of the man's sister. They have also visited the family tomb at a graveyard in Södertälje, digging up the grave stone and replacing it by a stone with the inscription "XX never became a mink farmer".

They also visited the man's potential business partners and threw a firebomb which did not detonate against the house of his accountant.

The prosecutor tells TT there is reason to believe she will demand several years in prison for the three most active in the case.

All five deny the charges, except for the 22-year-old woman, who admits to arson against a garage belonging to another man wanting to start a mink farm in Lidköping.

[jimmy olsen]

They should have skinned the Giraffe and auctioned the coat off.

[Neil]

They should have skinned the Giraffe and auctioned the coat off.

They're not allowed to traffic in commercial animal parts.

[DGuller]

They should have skinned the Giraffe and auctioned the coat off.

I don't think that would've saved him.

[derspiess]

They should have skinned the Giraffe and auctioned the coat off.

I don't think that would've saved him.

Would've saved the skin, though. 

I wouldn't mind having a genuine giraffe-skin coat

[OttoVonBismarck]

Jack Hanna raises cash to save 2nd giraffe

By Kathy Lynn Gray The Columbus Dispatch • Friday February 14, 2014 6:31 AM



As worldwide outrage continues over the killing of a healthy giraffe in Denmark on Sunday, Jack Hanna has raised more than $100,000 to bring a second Danish giraffe threatened with slaughter to Ohio.

Hanna, emeritus director of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, said yesterday that it took him just three phone calls to raise the money after he heard on Wednesday that the Jyllands Park zoo in Denmark might kill a healthy giraffe in its care.

He said the Wilds animal preserve in Muskingum County, which the Columbus Zoo oversees, has 9,000 acres and plenty of room to house more than the six giraffes it has now.

“No matter what kind of living creatures you have in a zoo, there’s a responsibility for zookeepers to take care of them throughout their lifetime,” Hanna said. “If we don’t do that, we shouldn’t have zoos.”

On Sunday, the Copenhagen Zoo killed a 2-year-old giraffe that had been born there. Veterinarians shot the giraffe in the head with a bolt pistol — the type used in slaughterhouses — then cut it up in front of visitors and fed parts of it to lions.

Zoo officials said the giraffe’s genes were not needed; they turned down opportunities to move the giraffe elsewhere and said allowing visitors to watch it being cut up was educational.

Hanna’s passionate speeches and interviews about the giraffe’s death apparently convinced the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a worldwide organization with more than 6,000 members, to rethink a bland statement it released on Monday that neither condemned nor supported the Copenhagen Zoo’s actions.

In a statement yesterday, the association said its accredited zoos exchange animals and manage breeding so animals are not born that can’t be cared for throughout their lifetimes. Unneeded animals are not killed, the statement said.

The Jyllands Park zoo said on its Facebook page yesterday that it might have to euthanize one of its two male giraffes if it obtains a “genetically more valuable” animal and can’t find a new home for the unneeded giraffe.

The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, which supported the Copenhagen Zoo’s actions, said it would not support killing one of the Jyllands Park giraffes.

Columbus Zoo director Tom Stalf said yesterday that what happened in Copenhagen should never happen again.

“There are so many other options,” he said.

The Columbus Zoo, for example, has 11 giraffes: eight castrated males, one male for breeding and two females. Plans already are in place to house any offspring produced by breeding.

“When you plan, you can ensure that you’re giving the animals in your care great care and long lives,” Stalf said.

“I’m encouraging the zoos in Denmark to manage their population and know where the offspring is going to go before putting a male and a female together.”

In the meantime, Hanna said, plans for a Siberian tiger from the Copenhagen Zoo to come to the Columbus Zoo for breeding have been put on hold.

“I want no involvement with anyone (from that zoo) if this kind of killing is practiced,” he said.

He said he has not yet talked to Jyllands Park officials about how much it might cost to buy the giraffe, but he plans to set up a fund to save any giraffes threatened with slaughter at zoos.

“I’m going to put in a nice amount to start the whole thing,” he said.

For now, he said, people can donate to the Columbus Zoo and indicate what their donations are for.

“We have a responsibility to these animals to breed them and watch their gene pool, but we don’t have the right to shoot the animal and say that’s educational,” he said.

“It’s a sad thing to think that human beings betrayed that beautiful giraffe. As long as I’m alive, I’ll do everything I can to stop it.”

[email protected]

@reporterkathy

And that's all I've been saying, aside from people that work at the Copenhagen Zoo I've not really heard any zoo professionals saying this complies with normal practice. Culling is a necessary thing that is based on having too many animals and nowhere to home them, which was explicitly not the situation in Copenhagen. An organization with 6,000 zoos as members worldwide is now against the practice and even the European Association  has said they wouldn't support the Jylland Zoo doing this, when it's just talking about doing the exact same thing as what the Copenhagen Zoo did. It all makes it obvious to me that indeed the Copenhagen Zoo wasn't acting within norms.

[garbon]

Or that they have taken a PR hit.

[Berkut]

At this point anything anyone says is driven almost completely by the need to not get beaten up by a largely irrational public. You won't get anything honest out of a zoo while the public is foaming at the mouth like this.

[OttoVonBismarck]

At this point anything anyone says is driven almost completely by the need to not get beaten up by a largely irrational public. You won't get anything honest out of a zoo while the public is foaming at the mouth like this.

I dunno, I think the fact that pretty well known/respected American zookeepers were offering to pay to transport the giraffe out of Copenhagen, not to mention similar efforts in the UK, is more telling. Most zoos run on a mixture of public funds, donations, and admission fees and usually don't just offer to waste limited resources for no reason. The fact that other professionals in the same field were willing to put their money where their mouths were prior to them putting the animal down and before it had made such a news impact tells me a good bit in and of itself.

My understanding has always been the larger animals are fairly limited resources in zoos and thus valuable on various fronts (both in terms of money as well as prestige in having the animals, increased interest from the public in having the animals etc), so I really don't see much evidence or really any evidence that the culling of large mammals for solely genetic reasons, when the animals could have been easily rehomed, is a common practice among zoos. That's quite different from culling less valuable animals that other zoos have no real interest in, or culling animals that are "problem" animals in terms of behavior or something and can't be housed with others of their species.