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February 12, 2014

Danish Zoo Kills Healthy Giraffe And Feeds It To Tigers [Bumped]

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Poor Marius. At 10 a.m. Sunday morning, the young giraffe was put down by his minders at the Copenhagen Zoo, despite the fact that he was perfectly healthy (and utterly adorable).
Then, with television cameras rolling and dozens of families watching, the giraffe’s body was skinned and carved up for tiger meat. A staff veterinarian anesthetized the animal, before shooting it through the head with a bolt-action rifle. Marius died instantly.... "neutering the young giraffe would have diminished his quality of life," says Holst. | TIME.com

As opposed to shooting it in the head with a bolt-action rifle and feeding the parts to carnivores? Let's try that again with the zoo’s scientific director, Bengt Holst.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 12, 2014 12:10 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

The zoo’s scientific director, Bengt Holst said:
“If we’re serious about science, we can’t be led by emotion.”

=======================

Someone should say that to Bengt Holst's family right after he is dragged behind a truck until there is nothing left but a frayed rope.

The stupidity displayed by people in positions of authority today are appalling.

Posted by: ghostsniper at February 10, 2014 9:54 AM

Giraffes today, people tomorrow. Brave New World.

Posted by: BillH at February 10, 2014 10:02 AM

Giraffes are cute. The kids love to pet them.

Kind of like cows, AKA, What-we-are-having-for-dinner.

God knows, lions never pull down a young giraffe and start eating it before it's dead in the wild.

What offends us -- I agree it was stupid -- is that it was done at a zoo which we see as a sanctuary where the rules of the wild are suspended and all the animals live in Edenic peace and harmony. Plus it was done in the name of eugenics. In a place where Jews were rounded up by Nazi occupiers in World War II. Why is everybody so upset?

Posted by: mushroom at February 10, 2014 10:27 AM

"In a place where Jews were rounded up by Nazi occupiers in World War II.'

Not Denmark. Denmark didn't have a lot of Jews, but they refused to let the Germans take them.

Posted by: Fat Man at February 10, 2014 10:40 AM

The whole episode tells you everything you need to know about liberals. When they gain complete control, we will be the zoo animals. One step out of line, and bang -- soylent green.

Posted by: Fat Man at February 10, 2014 10:47 AM

Sorry, I should have said "attempted to round up". That's a great story.

Isn't like the Nazis did have the Jews isolated and the Danes broke them out and got them out to Sweden or some place? That would be a good movie.

Posted by: mushroom at February 10, 2014 11:58 AM

Tasty for the lion.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 10, 2014 12:22 PM

There are not words to describe this needless act of barbarism.

Posted by: tripletap at February 10, 2014 1:21 PM

To those feeling anything for the animal: You are just Godless heathen animal worshippers no different than Godless communist libtards for which you profess disgust. Now it's my turn. You are disgusting and PATHETIC.

Posted by: Doug at February 10, 2014 6:31 PM

Hey kids!!! Want to go to the zoo today?

Posted by: Potsie at February 10, 2014 7:14 PM

Gosh, Doug.
We're sorry for feeling sorry for the giraffe.
Didn't mean to offend you.

JWM

Posted by: jwm at February 10, 2014 7:35 PM

What kind of wimps are the zoo lions that they had to have the skin removed?

Posted by: Dr Weevil at February 10, 2014 7:41 PM

Not wimps. Typical cats.


JWM

Posted by: jwm at February 10, 2014 7:59 PM

Can we do the same thing with the PETA people?

Posted by: Vermont Woodchuck at February 11, 2014 5:29 AM

TrippleTap: YOU are the GODLESS HEATHEN, disgusting and pathetic!!! I do not worship animals. They are God's creations and I respect his creations because I am Not a Godless heathen. I am not liberal or democrat either. YOU are the Godless Heathen for even attempting to suggest otherwise. SHAME on you and shame on Bengt Holst and the Copenhagen zoo for employing this heartless fool. May God have mercy on your souls...

Posted by: 3xtapKilla at February 11, 2014 5:48 AM

DOUG: YOU are the GODLESS HEATHEN, disgusting and pathetic!!! I do not worship animals. They are God's creations and I respect his creations because I am Not a Godless heathen. I am not liberal or democrat either. YOU are the Godless Heathen for even attempting to suggest otherwise. SHAME on you and shame on Bengt Holst and the Copenhagen zoo for employing this heartless fool. May God have mercy on your souls...

Posted by: DougKilla at February 11, 2014 5:49 AM

The only time liberals use what they think is logic is when they want to kill something/someone they find inconvenient, such charming ghouls.

Posted by: pinklady at February 11, 2014 6:07 AM

The only time liberals use what they think is logic is when they want to kill something/someone they find inconvenient, such charming ghouls.

Posted by: pinklady at February 11, 2014 6:07 AM

One observation in agreement with the science director: it is very difficult to diminish anything's quality of life after you've put a bolt through its brain.

And a question. The animal was skinned. Who is to get the hide?

Posted by: arcs at February 11, 2014 6:51 AM

LIons in the wild often die of starvation until a human comes and skins their prey.

Oh wait, no they don't.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at February 11, 2014 8:22 AM

Don't they have cows in Denmark?

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 11, 2014 8:40 AM

I wonder. Did the lions revolt and refuse to eat the dead Giraffe out of protest.

Posted by: Kelvin at February 11, 2014 9:53 AM

I have been saying for years that when things go to hell, I'm going to eating the liberals.

I'll just tell them “If we’re serious about hunger, we can’t be led by emotion."

Posted by: edaddy at February 11, 2014 10:05 AM

Crap, if they'd have used a captive bolt gun to put down Woody Allen, skinned him and fed him to the lions, think how many comments that would get.

Bengt Holst would probably have gotten fewer death threats. Except for people who felt bad for the lions.

Posted by: mushroom at February 11, 2014 11:54 AM

Don't you love it when these effeminate degenerates on the Left make "hard choices" involving death?

They don't want to kill criminals or fight terrorists, but they're fine with killing innocent animals -- when it suits them -- while demanding a ban on hunting and wanting enforced vegetarianism. They're also cool with killing babies and old people. It is not a crime to be a murderous rapist or head-cutting terorist, but it is a crime to be inconvenient and helpless.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at February 11, 2014 1:03 PM

Mr. Holst, this is the Copenhagen Taxidermy Company, your new rug is ready to be delivered.

Posted by: John the River at February 11, 2014 5:33 PM

They couldn't have sold the young giraffe to another zoo, and used the proceeds to buy the meat of an animal that is raised to provide meat?

Why not?

Posted by: Smokey at February 11, 2014 6:46 PM

See? This is how far we've come on that evolution thing posted at the top of the sidelines, looks like a dagwood sandwich? We should turn back the clocks to an earlier time back around 50,000 years ago. There were no locks, no chains, no doors, no bars, no restrictions.

Let all the animals - from Fluffy your cat to Fido your dog to all the zoo animals, all the prisoners incarcerated, any living thing bound and restricted - let all creatures run free upon the earth. Things would soon settle out according to the science of Darwin and the Word of God: and God gave man dominion over all the animals which crawled upon the earth, soared across the skies and swam in the waters.

Posted by: chasmatic at February 12, 2014 5:33 AM

One of out local parks has a wolf exhibit. Most days they do a scheduled wolf feeding. Which consists of bringing out a deer carcass or two (often state collected roadkill, but sometimes hunter kills) and tossing them over the fence into the enclosure.

Carnage ensues, and unwary mothers gasp while their children learn the true nature of those cute furry canines with the piercingly beautiful eyes.

Insofar as the giraffe could have been sold off to another zoo for far more value as a live specimen than dead meat I agree that this was a an extravagant means of obtaining scientific information of dubious merit.

I refuse to be drawn into any attempts to politicize this beyond noting that the giraffe was indeed property.

Posted by: ThomasD at February 13, 2014 6:04 AM

Thomas: I share your perspective.

"I refuse to be drawn into any attempts to politicize this beyond noting that the giraffe was indeed property."

Posted by: chasmatic at February 13, 2014 6:14 AM

If the zoo is state funded the issue is already politicized and the people protesting paid the killers salary.

In a democracy the most violent mob rules and that could mean Bengt Holst might get thrown over that lion fence.

I'd surrender a couple of my favorite legal tenders to see web video of that.

Posted by: ghostsniper at February 13, 2014 6:36 AM

I don't understand what the hell is going on in this thread. Then again I don't understand what the hell is going on in this country or the world either.

..."Godless heathen?" "politicize?" "...indeed property?" "...science/emotion?" It is just a sad story about the seemingly needless slaughter of a captive animal.
The giraffe might have opted for sterilization vice death, kind of haughty to suggest that his life would have been so degraded that death was preferable to neutering /segregation. This is not about worshiping animals or any other such drivel, just about being an evolved human.

Posted by: tripletap at February 13, 2014 7:16 AM

I've been waiting for PETA to weigh in on this. And Waiting, waiting, waiting. I'll never get out of here.... (Apologies to Frank Capra.)

Posted by: BillH at February 13, 2014 7:50 AM

I know we all love to idealise our offspring as sensitive, bunny-hugging little moppets who wouldn’t hurt a flea. But the truth is that there are few things kids enjoy more than a nice, juicy carcase with its guts hanging out. Dead birds are good; dead badgers are better; a dead giraffe is all but unbeatable. -- James Delingpole

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100259000/watching-lions-eat-a-giraffe-is-a-family-day-out/

Posted by: Cris at February 13, 2014 8:01 AM

The property issue is one that gets abused a lot. If I want to kill my wife, that's the state's business. If I want to kill my dog, it's not.

A few years ago, a farmer had a bunch of horses, probably too many for the pasture he had, but they were his. Some weren't in good shape. A couple had died, and there were piles of bones.

The Humane Society and local law enforcement came out and confiscated the horses because they decided the owner was not taking good care of them.

If he had gone out and rounded up a few and shipped them to a slaughterhouse to be made into dog food, that would have been fine. If he had killed off a few of the sicker ones, got his front-end loader, and buried them, that would have been fine. But because he had so many and didn't cull them, he was arrested and charged with animal cruelty.

Cows, horses, pigs, sheep, goats, dogs, and cats are property. They don't have any rights. I would not be a good person if I mistreated them, tortured them or whatever, but that does not mean I can't do with them as I please so long as no humans are harmed in the process.

City people are, by and large, ignorant when it comes to animals.

As I said initially, what the zoo did was stupid, partly because of the context. What they did wasn't illegal nor was it unethical. I don't think it was immoral, just unnecessary and unwise.

I'll bet a good half the volks threatening Holst are fine with killing baby humans.

Posted by: mushroom at February 13, 2014 8:17 AM

I thought that Virginia Morrell, writing for the National Geographic, had some reasonable thoughts about this, here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140212-giraffe-death-denmark-copenhagen-zoo-breeding-europe/

People expect that zoos are there to take care of the actual, specific, individual animals in their care. Thus, they perceive that Bengt Holst broke a bond of trust between them and Marius.

Bengt Holst offered a eugenic rationale for culling a "surplus problem." And I would be willing to bet you a chocolagte milkshake that he is perfectly fine with culling baby or adult humans who no longer provide whatever benefit or usufruct he expects from them.

What I find particularly interesting, is that Bengt Holst did not simply order the culling of the herd, when a baby giraffe who was no longer cute enough to pull in the crowds grew up, but that he arranged to have the carcass butchered in front of a crowd of children.

I tend to think that is tone way the intelligentsia who believe (mistakenly) that they are the real authority in the bureaucratic state wish to assert and proclaim their power over the spectators.

More here:http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-bengt-holst-killed-marius.html

Posted by: Punditarian at February 13, 2014 9:45 AM

tripletap:

"Ship to shore, can't see the coastline anymore,

I shouldn't be here, I thought I made that loud and clear."

from a John Hiatt song, Master of Disaster.

Posted by: chasmatic at February 13, 2014 10:59 AM

"seemingly needless slaughter"

Lions, like all felines, need meat.

Something had to die to supply that meat.

Was this giraffe the best choice?

Perhaps not, but as it successfully filled the bill of fare, it therefore was not needless.

Posted by: ThomasD at February 14, 2014 5:03 PM

We are dancing. Most of us commenters, we like the steaks or a rack of ribs. How 'bout veal or lamb, uh? It doesn't bother me that the critters are juveniles. leather shoes, all the stuff PETA and others freak out about. Perhaps some of us have condoned an abortion, shrug.

This was a giraffe, not a keystone in the cycle of life. Killed humanely, better'n some convicts getting the hot shot. I don't think zoos in general are good for the animals. Zoos are there for our pleasure, or learning, or a good place to stall the kids for an afternoon. The animals? We don't mind and they don't matter. 'S OK with me. Are you good with this?

Posted by: chasmatic at February 14, 2014 9:21 PM

Punditarian--
After some musing, I came up with something akin to your mention of "authority" and "power".

We have no idea what else may have been going on at this zoo, so I have only supposition... but... it certainly could be SEEN as "I'll force you to submit to my authority, bwahahaha!"

Do you see the similarity with Orwell's '1984' -- where The State can force you to betray the thing you most love???

Posted by: A_Nonny_Mouse at February 15, 2014 9:22 PM

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