The Marius Paradox

A Denmark zoo shot a giraffe in the head, chopped it up in front of a group of children and their parents before feeding it to the zoo's lions because they did not have room for another giraffe. Bengt Holst, director of research and conservation at Copenhagen Zoo, said the giraffe was 2 years old, and while he was not officially named, his keepers had called him Marius to identify him (which is officially what names are for).

Holst declared that the zoo staff saw it as a learning opportunity because zoos have an obligation "not to make nature into a Disney World," but rather show those interested in "the real thing." If that's the case, why not just turn Marius loose in the lion pen? Kids would learn more about nature by watching how a lion takes down a giraffe, rather than watching the Copenhagen zoo's glorified butcher do his work.

Several zoos volunteered to take Marius in, but "it is not possible to transfer the giraffe to another zoo as it will cause inbreeding," Holst said. Apparently because only zoos that follow certain rules can be part of international breeding programs. In Europe, these are members of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, and under its rules, inbreeding among giraffes is to be avoided. So, the zoo can only deal with other zoos in its network, but because of that rule they can't let them breed?  So how/why was Marius born in the first place if they knew they didn't have room for him and couldn't move him to one of their other zoos?

Zoo spokesperson, Stenbaek Bro, said his zoo had turned down offers from other ones to take Marius and an offer from a private individual who wanted to buy the giraffe for 500,000 euros ($680,000). He said a significant part of EAZA membership is that the zoos don't own the animals themselves, but govern them, and therefore can't sell them to anyone outside the organization that doesn't follow the same set of rules. This raises the question, if they don't own the animals, what right do they have to kill it?

The EAZA said some institutions that offered to take Marius were ruled out because they did not meet the organization's strict protocols, and the Copenhagen Zoo wouldn't send Marius to an institution with "lesser standards of welfare."

It's odd that they think that killing it would be in the animal's best interests over sending it somewhere without top-notch facilities. If you could ask the giraffe, I'm sure it would have been fine living in a second-rate zoo instead of getting shot in the head and fed to lions for the amusement of some kids.

I don't have any real problem with what happened here. It's just that every explanation seems to either contradict something else the zoo has said, or other logical alternatives. Obviously, the zoo likes to have cute baby animals born on their premises in order to bring in hordes of families and discards them when the newness and cuteness wears off. It seems that the EAZA or Copenhagen Zoo could have done quite a bit of education/conservation/preservation etc. with $680,000. It would also buy quite a bit of beef for their lions.