By MALIN RISING / Associated Press / February 14, 2014
STOCKHOLM (AP) — People around the world were stunned when Copenhagen Zoo killed a healthy 2-year-old giraffe named Marius, butchered its carcass in front of a crowd that included children and then fed it to lions.
But Marius’ fate isn’t unique — thousands of animals are euthanized in European zoos each year for a variety of reasons by zoo managers who say their job is to preserve species, not individual animals. In the U.S., zoos try to avoid killing animals by using contraceptives to make sure they don’t have more offspring than they can house, but that method has also been criticized for disrupting animals’ natural behavior.
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HOW OFTEN ARE LARGE MAMMALS KILLED IN ZOOS?
U.S. and European zoological groups refuse to release figures for the total number of animals killed. But David Williams Mitchell, spokesman of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, or EAZA, estimates an average zoo in its 347-member organization annually kills about five large mammals, which adds up to 1,735. The number doesn’t include zoos and animal parks that don’t belong to the association.
Animal rights groups suggest numbers are much higher. The Associated Press contacted 10 zoos in Europe — two refused to comment, four said they never kill any animals unless severely ill and four said they kill between one and 30 animals every year. Two zoos in the U.S. said they only ever kill animals for ‘‘quality of life reasons.’’
Exposing the Big Game 
These places are more about entertainment and always have been. Any species saving is secondary, and when animals in captivity do what they would do naturally and reproduce – zoos take the easy way out and destroy them. We need to do away with zoos and marine parks, and put our resources into preserving them in their natural habitats.
Reblogged this on Rocking the Suburbs and commented:
Zoos are prisons, and many times, zookeepers are the executioners (the worst thing is, these animals have done nothing wrong at all).
I always wonder what is really “entertaining” when animals are jailed for doing nothing wrong? Is it the fact that we are so stupid and have nothing else to do or are evil? You got it: bough.