3730 days ago
Across twitter there is anger and condemnation of a Danish zoo for killing Marius the two year old giraffe. Pictures of his body, hacked to pieces, as it prepares to go to the Lion cage are everywhere. An animal loving nation is outraged and we are all urged to sign an online petition. Bugger off: The Danes were correct.
Zoos exist primarily to preserve endangered species. As a secondary measure they give entertainment and education to folks who will never see exotic animals in the wild. But they all have limited resources in terms of space and money.
Marius did not come from an endangered species and moreover there was evidence of in-breeding so his gene bank hardly served a useful purpose. Nor is there a shortage of giraffe’s in zoos across the planet or in this Danish establishment. Meanwhile, lions need food and it may surprise some of our de-sensitized fellow citizens who think that meat comes from Tesco’s and does not involve animals being killed on farms, but lions are not vegetarians. Lions eat meat. And so to feed the Danish lions an animal somewhere has to be killed.
If it was not Marcus the giraffe (humanised with his human name) it would have been Cornelius the cow, or Cedric the sheep. If you want to keep lions in zoos you have to kill other animals. That is just a fact of life. Faced with a lack of space in the giraffe enclosure and lions who refused the vegetarian meals sent in by well-meaning “animal lovers” in Britain, there was only one sensible option.
Perhaps those on twitter might let us know what they think lions eat in the wild? Tofu? Broccoli? Grass?
