Funny enough your response illustrates exactly the point I was making. Yeah, it is pretty easy to anthropomorphize a human fetus, isn’t it?
You are sentimental about pets and human fetuses and not sentimental about cows or wild animals. Acknowledged. Zoo animals you put in with the first group and not the second. These zoo professionals feel otherwise and that makes sense to some of us.
That’s pretty much the life of a prey animal. They could have let the lions kill the giraffe but they used standard method to kill large animals cleanly. You are thinking that because the animal is in a zoo that they are treated differently, and to a degree they are. But not enough to make them pets.
As to the butchering the animal in front of children, it’s a non-issue. No one was there who didn’t know what they were going to see. It was an educational experience, one that every farm child has witnessed for generations.
It seems like this gets to the question of what are zoos for?
To the degree they exist to provide entertainment and amusement this was wrong - it went right up against all the fantasies some zoo-goers have of animals being people too thinking of these animals in the manner of exotic pets.
To the degree they exist (as many zoo professionals would like them to) to serve a role in animal species conservation and in serious education about wildlife - this was doing the job.
It seems like maybe the giraffe conservation breeding program is seeing an unfortunate consequence of its success. Apparently the zoo giraffes are breeding quite well (not as difficult as pandas, which IIRC don’t breed well in captivity). And so sometimes they have surplus giraffes that are from a more common sub-species and individuals that have many common genes thaat could cause inbreeding, and aren’t genetically valuable for the future conservation of the species.
So what are the alternatives to putting them down? They can’t release it into the wild, as this doesn’t work well for giraffes. They don’t want to send it to a non-EAZA member that doesn’t meet their standards, and where it might later be sold to a third party that doesn’t care for the animal properly. Hormonal contraceptives are only for female animals. Surgical sterilization for males is risky (when sedated apparently they can break their necks when they fall). And even if successfully sterilized and sent to a bachelor herd at another EAZA zoo, it’s taking a scarce spot that could go to another more genetically diverse specimen. They’re concerned with keeping the entire species as healthy as possible.
I think the zoo made the best of the situation. And I don’t have any issue with the public “autopsy” - everyone there knew what they would see and kids had parental permission. I hope it gets some of those kids interested in future careers in zoology/science. And lions are giraffe’s natural predators, so I think it’s good that they didn’t waste the meat.
I think the only reason there’s an uproar is because giraffes are cute. I read the other day that the same zoo says they also euthanized and butchered other surplus animals this year, including antelope and wildebeests (not sure how many). Maybe some more hard line animal right advocates would be against that as well, but I’d imagine they’re also against zoos in general, not just culling surplus animals. Most people who are fine with zoos in general probably don’t care about a wildebeest being culled.
Yeah I was just at the grocery store shooting and butchering cows and pigs. Oh wait, no I wasn’t. I did pop down to the store for a pound of giraffe meat though. Wait, no I didn’t. Geez, what am I going to feed the lions? Wait, I don’t own lions.
There is nothing natural about this scenario. You want natural? Let the lions loose and let them snack on a few kids. You want to show your kids the local slaughterhouse? Go for it.
When’s the last time you built your own cellphone? Car? Plane? X-ray machine? Clothing? Yeah, you didn’t. Yet, a certain subset of humans get off on blood and death and gore and they like to excuse it as “the circle of life.” It’s “natural.” Bullshit. The giraffe wasn’t profitable so just kill it and tell the kids it’s the circle of life, because yanno lions hunt with guns, right?
Right. It doesn’t count if you hire someone to do it for you and don’t have to watch. What matters is what you see, not what is.
Silliness.
Do you object to a cow or a pig having been raised and then killed for meat? Do you think that it is okay so long as the dirty deed is done by others out of your sight? Do you think that it would be wrong for a slaughterhouse to allow guided tours to families who are interested in where their meat comes from and how it is produced? Wrong for people to see it? Okay only so long as it is properly sanitized or Disneyfied even?
Other animals are killed to feed the lions. I hear that you have your sacred giraffes but an excess one is no more special than any profane cow. You want zoo-goers to be able to imagine that lions only eat tofu or that meat comes from grocery stores? The zoo-keepers would rather not honor those fantasies.
I think it would have been better if they sold the giraffe meat to the people watching and then used that money to buy more beef. I’d probably pay $15-$20 a pound for giraffe meat, why waste it on the lions.
I’d be in for 2 lbs. just out of curiosity.
Put me in the enthusiastic category. All the surprising noise has resulted in a big growth in the number of people going to the zoo. They should slaughter more giraffes. Lions, tigers, and cuddly ant-eaters, kill them all.
In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t do that already. I mean raise their own livestock for feeding the carnivores.
What’s so much better killing cows to feed your lions, than killing giraffes? They could also serve exotic giraffe steaks in the zoo restaurant.
Lots of zoos raise rats and rabbits to feed smaller carnivores.