what's all this.....

[captainbovine]

...about a Danish zoo killing off a giraffe?

gawd, Stan will go bonkers if she hears about it, I'm sure she'd have given it a good home.

[ilove2patch]

Here is the link to the story.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/10626958/Danish-zoo-shoots-giraffe-and-feed...

Hard to believe!

[duck_a_lorange]

Another EU directive. And some pig-headed people.

[chickengrandma-2008]

I find it even harder to believe those parents letting their young children watch the autopsy and cutting it up for the carnivores.  Did you notice on the number of signatures trying to save him, there were something like 5,000 Danish,  and 24,000  British.

[aernethril]

I think the directive was meant for the right reasons - to prevent interbreeding.

The carnivores do need a lot of meat and the nearer to their natural diet the better I suppose in one way.

The problem was that if they're not interested in selling the animals to another zoo or institution, then they need to keep very quiet about their policy on breeding and slaughtering animals for meat for the others.

Zoos are such a minefield of wrongs and rights now - if the giraffes were a seriously endangered species, then they should be returned at suitable age to be re-homed, but the cost is enormous.

What IMHO needs to be addressed now is whether zoos should be keeping and breeding animals just for the sake of doing so, when there is no need or attempt to preserve those that are endangered for rehoming when the conditions have been set up and maintained in their natural homeland.

I think there are many zoos around the world, and even in the UK which really need looking at as to whether the fulfill a valuable need or education for people these days weighed against the needs of the animals.

[captainbovine]

oh that's disgraceful!! wether or not each country has different views on what children should witness, that is just too much for a young child, I bet everyone of those kiddies asked questions to their parents later on.

There was a UK zoo who said they'd take him, shame on them for not waiting until they could find a zoo to take the young giraffe in.

it's truly awful.

[**towery**]

why couldnt they have just castrated him?

it amazed me, i wondered if they had tried to keep it quiet

[aernethril]

It would not surpise me if the attempt to find a zoo was half-hearted.

The thing is, zoos were started in the way we know them back in the 18th or even 17th centurys, when there was a lot more room to house the animals (sometimes) and people had no idea of the impact they were going to have.

They became businesses - a way of making money out of any species that happened to be in fashion.

Then some of them felt they ought to justify their existence by joining in a breeding programme to help keep especially endangered species going.

But with these large animals, they are not only very costly to keep in 'foreign' countries, they're expensive to rehome and far too many are still kept in really abysmal surroundings and I can't see that there is a justification for this whatsoever.

For me, if the EU has to have a directive to stop interbreeding and swapping these animals around like trading cards, then the breeding needs to be radically curtailed if not completely stopped altogether.

[rose2008-2008]

Oh my gawd Ed i saw this just now on my homepage news and nearly copied it to put a picture but thought of Stan. I am outraged at this,,i could not even bring myself to read all of it!!!. I took it for a minuite they meant it had to be put to sleep but read on a little more and discovered this was not the case. Ohhhhh no. They are my favourite animal.

[rose2008-2008]

I did not mean any offence to you Ed,,i just meant i was outraged when i read it on MSM Homepage.

[rose2008-2008]

Im so all of a dither,,,,soryy i meant CAPTAIN.... Sorry LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..... ((())) ((())).

[aernethril]

Rose - try not to think too much about it.

At least the animal was shot cleanly even though it was quite disgraceful to carry this out in front of all those gawpers.

Remember that in the wild it might well have been brought down by a pride of lions and not so cleanly.

It did not suffer.

And from this, there may well now be a backlash against that zoo that could well prompt a change of attitude in how animals are kept and looked after.

[bitsnknots]

I think that it's awful and to do it in front of so many people as well.  I bet if Stan's seen that, she'll be gutted.

[ilove2patch]

Is this the same country that had a bloody massacre of dolphins recently as a 'coming of age' ceremony?

[captainbovine]

no Rose, I didn't know about it all either, it was only when I read that link, I nearly died!!!!!!

they could have castrated him yes, and dear God Maggie, that's an awful thing...those poor dolphins...

why are some countries so indifferent towards animals?

[saasher2012]

I also think it was wrong that this animal was destroyed in front of a crowd which I find distasteful & disrespectful towards this animal. I cannot agree with the castration theory. These animals live in herds & if castrated would have been bullied by both males & females, mainly because he would not know which sex he was & would have lost the ability to act in a way an entire male should. Therefore making his life a misery not being able to integrate with others, very often when this occurs it makes the animal dangerous because of frustration.

[alisonsvintagechicboutique]

I have no words other than just to say that I am horrified.  

[jillyjingle]

Longleat are no better

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2554916/Outrage-lioness-cubs-pride-Longleat-leaving-staff-te...

[petitecalicocat]

Shocking 

[ilove2patch]

At least they weren't butchered in public, not good though.