When Marius the giraffe became a young advlt he was no longer a cute little money maker and became "surpluss to requitements".

Despite other zoos offering to house him themselves and a private offer of 500000 euros he was shot in the head...

Then school children were invited to watch as they skinned and dismembered him and fed his remains to the Lions.

http://metro.co.uk/2014/02/09/marius-the-giraffe-skinned-and-fed-to-lions-as-children-look-on-4296818/

I appreciate they had reasons for wanting him gone but this zoo's attitude seems as indifferent to animal life as that of poachers.

What do you think?

While I can respect the logic of not keeping him due to being 'incist' given his genetic signature is too similar to all the present giraffes, I feel the zoo did not want to try hard enough and took the easy road. They said they didn't take him to other zoos due to 'red tape' that would be involved. So I feel they could have done more, but what's done is done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWxCM6llL60

I won't use my own opinions here, as I tend to get very, very angry and use very disgusting language when I see an animal in pain or read of any animals being in some sort of harm. Or I just cry. I have no words for this. Just the words of thousands of pounds of hatred that won't leave for a day.

I'd say it's death was more painless than if they had of gone for realism and just let him loose in the lion pen. I don't see the difference between feeding a dead giraffe to the lions and feeding a dead cow to the lions.

That aside I can't imagine that the 'red tape' actually made it impossible to deport the animal, and I couldn't imagine anyone who raised an animal and took care of it not wanting to do everything possible to avoid 'dismembering' that animal

Yep, I suspect it was just laziness and ineptitude of zoo administration ultimately.

Giraffe's genes were too common, instead of selling/giving him away they used him for food and gave those attending the zoo at the time a small lesson in giraffe biology and how they work.

Nothing really wrong with this at all. Horses and cows, pigs are killed every day for food with less reason than this giraffe.

Some of the ill informed should have a read; http://zoo.dk/BesogZoo/Nyhedsarkiv/2014/Februar/Why%20Copenhagen%20Zoo%20euthanized%20a%20giraffe.aspx

I'm glad they at least didn't waste the remains. That'd be far worse. I shouldn't have posted in this thread while angry, either. Good thing I kept my restraint. The Koko video pretty much summarizes my feelings towards this well enough even if it had a good reason.

Ah. It was because the giraffe was inbred. Understandable. Some of us weren't aware of this and only read the emotion charged opening post. Glad someone gave some background information on what happened.

Yeah, that's been all over the news here in Denmark. The public outcry over making use of the giraffe meat is crazy considering how we treat our pigs