General News This is just bullshit in so many ways ...

That's disgustingly horrible... And letting families watch is even worse... what assholes.

 

I'm not completely sure what the issue is, don't Lions eat Giraffes? Don't we have documentaries of animals eating each other?

Though I am not understanding why zoos have programs like the inbreeding one.

 

I didn't know they actually publicly displayed the autopsy and let families see the remains getting fed to lions, I mean... WTF?

And then they have these lame-ass excuses like not being able to transfer him for some obscure bureaucratic reason and "side-effects" of contraception etc. Not enough to justify ripping him up and inviting crowds to watch! I mean, were they even trying to be compassionate?

 

Sigh. Scientific mumbo jumbo coming in.

The association the zoo is a part of forbids inbreeding due to the fact that inbreeding can result in deformities and illness. Since the giraffe was part of an international breeding program and his genetic line was overabundant, he couldn't be used for such. Think of groups with lots of intermarriage between cousins. They tend to have health issues.

Due to legal reasons, he couldn't be sent to other zoos because, in a sense, the association of zoos owns the animals. It's a safeguard to prevent the animals from being sent to a zoo that lacks the proper housing for the animal. Similar to how one chain store isn't going to send supplies to another store chain.

When it comes to contraceptives/neutering, the side effects depend on what's being done. Most contraceptives are hormonal in nature, which can severely disrupt the body's natural hormones and cause a lot of health issues. As an example, in women, birth control can cause blood clots. Neutering requires surgery and for handler reasons, putting the animal under anesthesia. This in itself can be dangerous for the giraffe, or any large animal, for that matter.

When the animal was "ripped up", he was already dead. He was killed via a captive bolt gun, and then autopsied. It's seen as an education experience, I mean, hell. Discovery channel used to show documentaries on predators where they'd hunt down their prey, kill them, and eat them. In some cases, start eating the prey animal while it was still alive. I'm pretty sure that's a lot more gory that lions gnawing on a chunk of meat.

 

That is disgusting! I love animals, and I can't believe they'd do this. :tantrum:

 

Well yeah in the wild something like a lion hunting giraffes and other animals is one thing, but making a show of taking a giraffe and killing it and having people watch the autopsy too, especially with kids, is beyond fucked up.

And i looked it up real quick, and lions and the other carnivores in zoos are generally fed meat that has been specifically raised to be food and is already prepared. They don't take cows and sheep and kill them in front of everybody and then throw them to the carnivores. And these zoo carnivores don't eat meat from things like giraffes, like i said, it's from animals that are raised to be food.

And also them killing the giraffe in the first place is an issue, cause there was absolutely no need for it. I know what Sarcastic Luck is saying, and I understand the inbreeding stuff cause of my own interest in horse breeding, but even if there was truly no other way, this giraffe had to die (which is bullshit but whatever) they could've killed him in private and not make it a spectacle.

 

Why would they let children watch that!? :eek: I mean, that's just not appropriate...

 

Showing autopsy of giraffe to children ?! I get why they killed him but showing something like that to children.

 

Lol. I was Like 7 or 8 when I watched documentaries on gazelle getting chomped on by lions and used to find dead mice or whatever and try to do autopsies on them.

Kids aren't the innocent, pristine things people seem to think they are.

 

unrelated: when I was a child, I had killed various insects and snails...

Maybe watching autopsy is something in Danish culture? I don't know? Do we assume all children are roughly the same?

 

Please - I grew up helping to skin and butcher animals that we raised from babies (they tasted wonderful, especially with a nice marinade). Kids in my home town routinely took part in family hunting trips where they would kill their own moose/caribou/whatever, and then take part in skinning, dressing, and packing out the kill.

Death and being consumed is a part of life and nature. Pretending that it's not is just playing a mind game with yourself. Shielding children from the realities of nature, including death and consumption is nearly a form of child abuse.

Todd

 

"Other alternatives, like contraceptives and neutering are considered cruel because they can have undesirable side effects"

lol really? More cruel than slaughtering the animal, chopping it up, and feeding the pieces to lions, all in front of children? I think death is the ultimate side effect.

The autopsy was probably for show, too. Make the slaughter seem a little more scientific.

 

Of course it's a part of life and all that, but the way this particular situation went down is just messed up. And I'm not advocating shielding kids from death; it's the making it into a show and all that I'm against. I just see it as disrespectful to the giraffe.

I mean there's a difference between taking your kids hunting and teaching them to be respectful about it, and then something like this in a place like a zoo where it's not known for staff people or whatever to kill healthy animals at all in the first place, and especially out in the open.

 

I heard about this earlier today, and I still don't really see the issue.

It was an educational experience for the children.

The lions are in for a treat.

Oh and now there is no inbreeding!

Maybe I'm being an insensitive jerk, but zoos don't just kill animals willy-nilly. The way you've put this it's as your saying the zoo was looking forward to putting the giraffe down. To me it sounds like they were in a tough spot and they made the best of it. Instead of wasting the opportunity, they allowed children to learn first hand, and then the lions got to eat up the mess when they finished.

 

I think someone brought it up before but the zoo couldn't just "give" or "donate" the animal to another zoo. There are protocols in place that make that impossible to do legally.

Circuses are a different story. Those animals are kept in horrific conditions and put through tremendous amounts of stress.

At the end of the day it was one giraffe who happened to be too inbred to risk having it mate with others. Causing offspring with health issues.

Zoos aren't the only ones who play god. Animal shelter, humane societies, hell even pet owners who can't keep feeding Ms. Mittens put their animals down when they could have many years a head of them.

Was this giraffes situation fair? No. It was born into a zoo. Not a nature reserve, or in it's natural habitat. Life sucks.

 

Look guys... they do not want inbreds.
The fact that they killed a baby is sad.
But why are you not outraged at nature.
It is barbaric... but not more barbaric than what happens in nature.

I am on the other fact that kids were allowed to see the desmebration of the giraffe.
It is grusome and a child should not watch that...

 

Okay, putting my two cents in.

For starters, the zoo could not keep the giraffe because of interbreeding. This also meant that a lot of other zoos could not take it either. Secondly, if the zoos that offered to take it, were not a safe place, it would have been worse to place the giraffe there, then to do what they did.

Secondly, the children were invited to watch, not force. There were not mention of age. The children very well could have been young teenagers, thus making them old enough to understand, 1 what is going on, and 2 it is a great opportunity for them to learn about biology and the food chain. Children are not some fragile thing to be locked up, they have to learn and there is no better way then to watch.

Thirdly, they did not waste the meat, they fed it to the lions. They probably saved the zoo a lot of money, and gave the lions meat that they are more used to eating rather than what the zoo is feeding them. Lions hunt and kill giraffes in the wild, so how is this any different.

Fourthly, the way that the giraffe was killed was painless. If it would have been killed in the wild, the death would have been a lot more painful, so why is this a pain thing. The animal did not suffer.

Finally, this no difference than a slaughter house killing animals for human consumption. Do you people even think about where your meat comes from? I have cleaned many animals in my life time and I still eat meat, I have no problem with it. I am actually happier knowing what was involved and when the animal was killed, this way I know that it is fresh.

 

Wow that's just horrible they let kids watch this ?:eek: