In regards to the Copenhagen Zoo/Marius the giraffe incident

[Doodlebug]

I don't believe that animals should be confined either. I remember as a kid watching the big gorillas in their cages throwing their own excrement at the humans gawking at them. I felt so sorry for them and didn't blame them. They looked so frustrated and bored out of their minds.

[Wylie's Mom]

Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly

Lots of places wanted to take the young giraffe but no, they preferred to slaughter him - kill him, cut him up and feed him to other wild animals in front of children and onlookers for a show - to garner buzz. Well, I hope this atrocity shows people that zoos are cruel places where wild animals are held in too tiny spaces and not allowed to live normal lives and all for what - our entertainment??????

We don't need zoos for education - we can read all about the animals and see videos to learn more about their lives in the wild than we EVER can seeing them housed behind fences or barriers, peering out at us in captivity without their freedom, unable in any way to live their lives normally and naturally, mate, raise their young, teach them and get to live the joy of the hunt and foraging for their meals. These poor animals are often forced to live their whole lives in climates and weather totally foreign to their natural habitat or comfort zone. I hate zoos and any form of entertainment that forces wild animals to appear and stand around or sometimes actually perform tricks in order to entertain people. We've got all the entertainment we need without subjecting poor wild animals to captivity and living totally against their natures and all thanks to us and our so-called educational needs. And if zoos are our only entertainment or way to "educate" us, it would still be wrong. If we aren't any more enterprising in being able to learn and appreciate the world's animals without keeping wild animals out of their natural habitats in weather often wildly foreign to them and in abject captivity for us to go look at occasionally, we should be ashamed of our lack of resourcefulness.

It's sickening and should be criminal what this horrible zoo did to this poor young giraffe with his whole life to live in his natural world. And shame on those that stood there with their children and watched it all! Gross, uncouth and appalling for people pay that horrible zoo money to get in to stand and ogle as a noble young animal with its whole life yet to live being unceremoniously killed for the no reason, dismembered and fed to other animals with their young children standing by watching! If I saw something like that, it would mark me for life, even now!

The place should be closed down - period. It's a shameful, gory, wretched place with sick leadership.

Perfectly, just PERFECTLY said, per usual my friend!

[mimimomo]

I don't get it...why watch the dissection & let your children watch it too! Marius didn't need to be killed...I just don't get it & they're thinking of doing it again?!

Blackfish was a very good documentary about the killer whales in Sea World. How they treat them is so horrific, no wonder they go nuts & attack the trainers...wish one of these days, zoos & sea world & other animal attractions all close down for good.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Blackfish made me sick to my stomach. Poor big killer whale is so depressed, sick or whatever his dorsal fin won't even stand up.

[Woogie Man]

We're all shocked at this and rightfully so. I have to wonder, though, how many zoo animals meet a similar fate out of the public eye.

The reasons given for killing this giraffe and the one they are planning to kill strikes me as not uncommon situations. I've a feeling that the 2 Mariuses are not the first and won't be the last to suffer such a fate at the hands of their keepers.

[Yorkiemom1]

I read they are NOT going to euthanize the other giraffe, since all the uproar over Marius. The killing of this animal was wrong and uncalled for on so many different levels...these people had been offered big bucks for that giraffe and they turned it down. Land all over the Earth is being developed in order to accomodate the exploding human population. The reality of the situation is there is no room for both us and the animals that live in the few areas that still contain wildlife. Now, we can spay and neuter humans, or we can spay and neuter all the wild animals....obviously, these are unrealistic solutions for a very real issue. Unlike animals, when humans are starving and dying, they continue to procreate, making their plight worse. Animals, on the other hand, will naturally decrease breeding, and the populations of a species will begin to decrease. Zoos will eventually be the only place where humans will be able to see animals that roam the Earth today. Zoos must have breeding programs where they breed and continue to strengthen the lines of the animals they have....that is why zoos move animals around and share and swap animals....in order to diversify the lines they are breeding. The zoo in Copenhagen says that is why they put that innocent animal down....their lines were becoming too concentrated....they were doing a lot of inbreeding, and this begins to open up problems of genetic instability. But I have not seen why they chose to kill the animal rather than accept the money they were offered and send the animal to them. I am sure somehow, it was going to cost that zoo money to send that giraffe away....it was cheaper to kill the animal, than ship it off.

[Wylie's Mom]

Originally Posted by yorkietalkjilly

Blackfish made me sick to my stomach. Poor big killer whale is so depressed, sick or whatever his dorsal fin won't even stand up.

I haven't yet brought myself to watch this - I keep seeing it in the listings on CNN, but haven't gotten the guts yet. Is it bearable to watch, or is it extremely graphic or anything?

[Maximo]

Originally Posted by Woogie Man

We're all shocked at this and rightfully so. I have to wonder, though, how many zoo animals meet a similar fate out of the public eye.

The reasons given for killing this giraffe and the one they are planning to kill strikes me as not uncommon situations. I've a feeling that the 2 Mariuses are not the first and won't be the last to suffer such a fate at the hands of their keepers.

This is what I have read in comments on articles about Marius.

[yorkietalkjilly]

Originally Posted by Wylie's Mom

I haven't yet brought myself to watch this - I keep seeing it in the listings on CNN, but haven't gotten the guts yet. Is it bearable to watch, or is it extremely graphic or anything?

I can't bear to see animals suffering but I made it through this with only the occasional necessary look-away. It's so terribly sad and depressing that after it's over that you will cry. It's so unnecessary for these poor big beautiful animals to live the way SeaWorld forces them to live rather than in a huge ocean where they can swim, hunt and frolic to their hearts' content with their kin and kind - and it's all for money. They suffer unnatural confinement, forever separation from their families and utterly hopeless lives so SeaWorld owners, workers and investors can live good lives and go about as they please. It's the saddest thing I've seen in a long while.

[chachi]

I love giraffes this is so sad and to be done by a zoo makes me angry