A healthy young giraffe has been put down at Copenhagen zoo, despite a campaign to save it.
Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.
Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.
But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun.
Live footage of his body being dissected was streamed by Ekstra Bladet, showing zoo workers wearing green rubber gloves carrying out the dissection while an announcer guided the crowd through the process and fielded questions. Some of the meat was later fed to lions at the zoo.
The zoo defended the decision to slaughter Marius, saying that to send the giraffe to another zoo would also risk problems of inbreeding. It said Marius's genes were already well represented among giraffes at the zoo.
Strange is that if the Danish Zoo knew about the EU inbreeding law they stll went ahead and bred this Graffe anyway.
Unfortunately the Viking mentality is still alive and well in Denmark. Shame on the Government of Denmark for also not stopping this killing.
EU-Digest
Protesters carrying banners gathered outside the zoo this morning and thousands of people signed a petition to rescue the giraffe, called Marius, after the Danish zoo announced it was planning to kill the animal because of European laws on inbreeding.
Other zoos, including the Yorkshire wildlife park in Britain, had offered to take it in.
But according to the Danish newspaper BT, Marius was fed some rye bread at 9.15am and was killed shortly after by a shot in the head with a bolt gun.
Live footage of his body being dissected was streamed by Ekstra Bladet, showing zoo workers wearing green rubber gloves carrying out the dissection while an announcer guided the crowd through the process and fielded questions. Some of the meat was later fed to lions at the zoo.
The zoo defended the decision to slaughter Marius, saying that to send the giraffe to another zoo would also risk problems of inbreeding. It said Marius's genes were already well represented among giraffes at the zoo.
Strange is that if the Danish Zoo knew about the EU inbreeding law they stll went ahead and bred this Graffe anyway.
Unfortunately the Viking mentality is still alive and well in Denmark. Shame on the Government of Denmark for also not stopping this killing.
EU-Digest
