Have you heard about Marius the giraffe?

[Whatthefluff]

I just heard about this. In the Copenhagen Zoo, a 2-year-old giraffe was euthanized because his genes were overepresented in the captive giraffe population. His corpse was then fed to the zoo's lions. There had been online petitions, pleas, offers to take in Marius, but the zoo decided to do this anyway.
Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I am not inclined to believe that the people who made this decision are in any way uncaring monsters which leads me to conclude they have made the best of a bad situation.

It is presumably not possible or not viable to return this animal to wild and to keep it in captivity would be a grossly negligent misallocation of limited resources which would ultimately cause more harm than good.

Sometimes people have to make hard choices and sometimes those choices are unpopular.

I would take this as a sign that the people at that zoo are making the right choices, regardless of what anyone else might think about it and thats a good thing, we need more people in the world who have the courage to do these things, there is far too much in the way of cancel culture and pandering to popular opinions.

[Whatthefluff]

Thanks for your insight. It just makes me feel really sad because giraffes are peaceful creatures

[Opinion Owner]

Sure, its sad.

Giraffe's are my favourite.

But what's worse? One giraffe becoming lion food as it may well have done in the wild anyway or all giraffes everywhere being lost because we screwed up their genetics with inbreeding?

[LaFerrari]

that's sad those people should be fired, Also speaking of animals have you ever heard the story of Wojtek? a more heartwarming story than the demise of Marius. https://avantgardens.medium.com/wojtek-the-soldier-bear-who-helped-to-win-the-battle-of-the-mountain-fortress-at-monte-cassino-cf5f9dad4981

[LaFerrari]

Thank you for MHO

[dustybiker]

I’m not entirely sure this could be accurate… Could an animal that has been injected with lethal levels of drugs be fed to other animals safely? Sounds like some facts might be missing.

As for the story. Never liked zoos or animal display parks.
Have respect for rehabs and reserves though. They only give private and limited tours to help fund the places to heal or care for animals not able to be released.

[exitseven]

I had to look up to find out what overrepresented meant. He should have been sterilized instead. The poor giraffe did not ask to be born in a zoo. He should have been allowed to live out his life in captivity/

[CloudMassacre]

I don’t know anything about giraffe conservation, so I don’t really know what to feel. My gut says they could’ve found someone, but who knows how the new people would treat it. Like if it turned out that it went somewhere and was neglected and abused, I would’ve preferred it just be killed. But I don’t know anything so I’m just guessing 🤷‍♂️

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

This is horrible to think they would do this to a Giraffe and so sad too

[joeldalton]

seems stupid, but there's much bigger things to worry about.

[Whatthefluff]

On the grand scale of life, yes. But this could open up discussions about ethics.

[Anonymous]

I'd be interested to hear their reasoning for not accepting other offers to take him in. I mean maybe those offers while well intended didn't fully meet the giraffes needs.

[IsoUser]

That sounds incredibly inhumane towards any species of animal and completely inappropriate.

[msc545]

Animal abusing ASSHOLES!

[NamerOfStars]

Nothing like conservationism, eh?

[RebeccaBITex2000]

That sounds really messed up.