MOSCOW, February 10 (RIA Novosti) – The Moscow Zoo said Monday that the public killing of a giraffe with a bolt gun in the Copenhagen Zoo was “unwarranted cruelty.”
Moscow zookeepers acknowledged in a Facebook statement that the death of the 18-month-old giraffe named Marius was necessary to prevent inbreeding.
But the animal could have been killed less brutally, the statement said.
Moreover, the giraffe’s parents should not have been allowed to breed if the offspring would be undesirable, the Moscow Zoo said.
Marius was killed by a bolt shot into his head on Sunday. Dozens of children, some aged 6 or 7, attended the killing, billed as an educational event.
The corpse was then autopsied in front of the public as part of the program, and the meat was fed to lions, tigers and leopards.
The Copenhagen Zoo said the giraffe had to be disposed of because he was a close relative of most other giraffes in European zoos, which goes against the rules by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria that prohibit inbreeding.
Between 20 and 30 animals a year are slain in the Copenhahen Zoo for the same reasons, without any media hype, the zoo said.
About 27,000 people signed an online petition to keep Marius alive, but to no avail.
The Moscow Zoo, which dates back to 1864, itself was mired in scandal last August, when a blogger accused it of mismanagement and cutting needed research programs.
The zoo administration dismissed the allegations, and the accuser later retracted most of the accusations, but not before outcry erupted in the Russian blogosphere.
