Animal Eugenics? Zoo Kills and Feeds ‘Surplus’ Giraffe to Lions in Front of Kids

Despite a petition signed by over 20,000 people, an individual’s offer of $680,000, and a host of other zoos willing to take him, a Danish zoo shot a two-year-old giraffe named Marius with a bolt gun, killing and dissecting him before feeding him to lions — all in front of onlookers including a bunch of school kids.

The kicker? The zoo said it was because Marius, an otherwise healthy and normal giraffe, was “a surplus animal” and the zoo wanted to save his space for a “genetically more valuable giraffe“. Apparently The Copenhagen Zoo made a statement that Marius would be put down because his genes were “over-represented.” The zoo has seven other giraffes.

Parents were informed of what their children were about to witness, and what they witnessed sounds a lot like animal eugenics to me.

Let’s see…definition?

eu·gen·ics
\yü-ˈje-niks\
noun

A science that deals with the improvement (as by control of mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed.

Yep.

The Copenhagen Zoo bred this animal, then decided his life wasn’t worth saving because he was too genetically similar to the other giraffes they had. Bengt Holst, the zoo’s scientific director, told the BBC, “Giraffes today breed very well, and when they do you have to choose and make sure the ones you keep are the ones with the best genes.”

Copenhagen, by the way, is a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), which is why the zoo was not allowed to give the giraffe to any zoo which is not a member of EAZA. It was EAZA that reportedly helped determine that Marius was “surplus”.

Zoo spokesman Tobias Stenbaek Bro told the Associated Press, “I’m actually proud because I think we have given children a huge understanding of the anatomy of a giraffe that they wouldn’t have had from watching a giraffe in a photo.”

Again, this was a perfectly normal, healthy giraffe. Sure, the children may have learned something about giraffe anatomy, but they also learned that if a living thing isn’t considered to be of superior genetic stock, it is okay to kill it. And feed it to lions.

(Hitler would be proud.)