On February 9th 2014 in the Copenhagen Zoo a healthy two year old giraffe named Marius was killed. According to the New York Times, the main reason why he was killed was because his genes were well represented among the captive giraffe. In other words they just killed him because he was there!
They said that they needed room for other animals so they just killed him! Its unethical to kill a healthy giraffe! What the Copenhagen Zoo did was evil!
Bengt Holst, the zoo’s scientific director said “ A giraffe is not a pet; it’s not like a dog or a cat that becomes part of the family, it is a wild animal.” This is the stupidest excuse EVER! even if the giraffe is a wild animal it is a living being with feelings! you can’t just go around and kill animals simply because theres no room. You could always give it to another zoo! Before Marius was killed nearly 30,000 people were signing a petition for Marius not being killed. People actually sent the people at the zoo death threats, the zoo also turned down a bid for 500,000 euros to stop Marius from getting killed. One person actually tried to pay $682,000 if they let Marius live with them! People were more than outraged after Marius was killed, they were livid. Mr Holst also said that he wanted all the animals in the zoo to be happy, and Marius would not be happy sent away apparently, this is another reason why Marius was killed. They also killed him in a cruel way, they shot him in the head with a shotgun! They did this because they were going to feed him to the tigers, the lions and other bigger cats and, if they gave Marius a shot then he wouldn’t be safe for the animals to eat him! As I told you before tons and tons of people tried to stop Marius from getting killed and after he was killed they were really really mad. This shows that people care. That theres not only bad people out there. Theres lots and lots of good people. It just seems the worlds mostly a bad place because of what we hear. We should be thankful that there are people who care so much.
Many people have stopped going to the Copenhagen Zoo after Marius was killed as a sign of protest, also I think that if less people go to the zoo then the zoo will stop killing their animals. I also think that we should come up with a petition for ANY zoo to stop killing their animals. We could also raise enough money to adopt a zoo or make some of the animals our mascots! I think if tons of people do this then we could stop zoos killing animals!
About the Author
Works Cited
“Anger Erupts After Danish Zoo Kills a ‘Surplus’ Giraffe – The …” 2014. 3 Mar. 2015.
The New York Thyme -- Student Editorials 