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'Surplus' young giraffe Marius destroyed by Copenhagen Zoo despite online petition Copenhagen Zoo kills 'surplus' young giraffe Marius despite online petition
(about 9 hours later)
A bid by animal rights campaigners to stop a young giraffe from being put down at a Copenhagen Zoo have failed. Ignoring thousands of pleas for clemency, at least two wildlife parks that wanted to re-home him and an offer of £415,000 from a wealthy benefactor, Copenhagen Zoo went ahead with the killing of Marius the giraffe on Sunday morning.
Thousands of people had signed online petitions in an attempt to save the male animal, Marius, who was destroyed because he resulted from in-breeding. After a bolt gun to the head, he was dissected publicly in front of a crowd of children then fed to the lions.
Marius was killed with a bolt gun and following an autopsy will be feed to carnivores kept at the zoo in the Danish capital. It was a bold statement of just how confident the zoo was in its decision to kill a perfectly healthy animal after less than two years of life.
He will be killed with the  gun rather than lethal injection so the meat is not contaminated, reports claimed. The reason — his genes were too similar to other giraffes in a breeding programme run by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) – failed to convince furious animal rights campaigners and the zoo was deluged with complaints on social media.
The zoo had said on its website that it had no choice but to put Marius down. Under European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) rules, inbreeding between giraffes is to be avoided. Copenhagen Zoo noted on its Facebook page that there was “massive debate…about one of our giraffes”.
Although Marius is healthy, his genes are already well represented at the zoo and he cannot be taken in by the 300 other EAZA-affiliated zoos, the zoo said. Its scientific director, Bengt Holst, said the zoo was working to maintain “a healthy giraffe population in European zoos”.
Despite this two zoos, one in the UK and one in Sweden, had reportedly put in last-ditch offers to take Marius in. “This is done by constantly ensuring that only unrelated giraffes breed so that inbreeding is avoided. If an animal’s genes are well represented in a population further breeding with that particular animal is unwanted,” he said in a statement.
Castration is considered cruel and carries 'undesirable effects'. Releasing the animal into the wild is an option with little likelihood of succeeding - especially as giraffes are not wanted in African countries. Marius’ genes were “well represented” and there was “no place” for him in the zoo’s herd, so it had been decided in conjunction with EAZA officials that he had to go.
Bengt Holst, the zoo’s scientific director, told Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet Marius needed to be killed to prevent inbreeding and keep the giraffe population down. “When breeding success increases, it is sometimes necessary to euthanize,” Mr Holst added.
“You have to accept that there is a surplus of animals that cannot be included in the genetic chain without causing inbreeding problems,” he said. The reaction to the death of Marius was swift.
Mr Holst said “in principle” there should be no difference between how a large exotic animal and a rat are treated but Marius’ case has sparked anger from animal welfare groups. Stine Jensen, of Denmark’s Organisation Against the Suffering of Animals, said the giraffe had been treated like a “waste product”, while Animal Rights Sweden said: “The only way to stop this is to not visit zoos.”
Mr Holst told the BBC it was a responsible practice on the part of zoos to manage their animal populations and that he could not understand the fuss over Marius. Yorkshire Wildlife Park said it was “saddened” to hear of his death, expressing disappointment that its last minute offer to house Marius in its “state-of-the-art giraffe house” alongside four other males, including one from Copenhagen Zoo, had been ignored. A Dutch wildlife park had also offered to re-home him.
He pointed out that 700-800 deer are killed every year at a deer park north of Copenhagen to control their numbers. Thousands took to social media to voice their opposition.
He also defended the plans to feed Marius to tigers and other carnivores: "It would be absolutely foolish to throw away a few hundred kilos of meat," Mr Holst said according to the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. "Some is used for research and the rest for food." “There were so many better options than to murder that young giraffe. What's worse, you made it a public spectacle, and set an appalling example,” said one message on the zoo’s Facebook site.
Maria Evans, who started the online petition, had said the giraffe “deserves to live”. “Clearly you had a choice to be kind and not kill this magnificent animal. Shame on you for doing the wrong thing! All zoos are prisons...& you are nothing but executioners!” a poster said.
She added: “The zoo have produced him so it is their responsibility to find him a home, no matter how long it takes. They must not be allowed to take the easy option.” “Sick sick sick!!! Disgusting boycott all zoos!!” was another verdict.
Other campaigners described the move as unethical and have branded it barbaric. Dr Lesley Dickie, executive director of EAZA, lamented that such strong feelings were not focused on conservation issues like the illegal trade in wildlife.
She also insisted most people would “see the bigger picture” once they were aware of all the facts.
It was “great that people care about giraffes”, she said, but she stressed that maintaining the genetic diversity of the captive population was important, particularly if there were ever attempts to reintroduce captive giraffes to the wild.
Dr Dickie, former conservation manager of the Zoological Society of London, admitted that moving Marius somewhere else seemed like “a nice thing to do”.
“But what that does is take up space for breeding herds. It does seem harsh, I know, but we have to manage it,” she said.
“It would be brilliant if we had unlimited space, but unfortunately that’s not the case.
“How many animals were euthanized for human consumption today? From my point of view, the welfare of any animal should be considered in the same way.
“Because it’s a giraffe, people get very concerned.”