Dani Strehle

Senior Manager

@Dvstrehle

Last month, PopWrapped reported a story about a perfectly healthy giraffe being slaughtered at a Copenhagen zoo before throngs of onlookers. The reason for this euthanasia? Population control. Despite the fact that other zoos and facilities offered to adopt the giraffe. The Copenhagen zoo rejected those offers, and instead fed the giraffe to the big cats and called it a lesson on the circle of life.

Courtesy of Frank Rensholt

Today, however, the focus of the needle was honed in on the other end of the food chain. According to National Geographic, “The Copenhagen Zoo put down a 16-year-old male lion, a 14-year-old lioness, and two young lions this week to make way for a new male lion from the Givskud Zoo, also in Denmark.”

Copenhagen zoo released a statement, disguised as an explanation for the second senseless slaughter(s) in a month:

On Monday the 24th of March Copenhagen Zoo received a new male lion from Givskud Zoo. This led to a change in the lion pride of the zoo which meant that the 16 year old male lion and the 14 year old lioness and two young lions were euthanized.

The change in the lion pride had to happen now because Copenhagen Zoo currently has two young females from the 2012 litter and it is ideal to keep these as part of the new pride and then find a suitable male. If the Zoo had not made the change in the pride now then we would have risked that the old male would mate with these two females – his own offspring – and thereby give rise to inbreeding. 

This “statement” begs the question: Why did they, once again, shun any idea of placing these beautiful creatures in adoptive homes rather than just murdering them?

According to the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA), the zoo has done nothing wrong and has violated no policy in their merciless slaying of innocent animals. While the US Association of Zoos and Aquariums has gone on record stating that the behavior exhibited by the Copenhagen zoo would simply not be tolerated in the US. In fact, there are breeding regulations in place and open transfers between facilities when a situation such as this arises.

Perhaps if the Copenhagen zoo could practice patience and wait until these animals are placed before bringing new creatures into this already tenuous situation, no more animals would be harmed.

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