“WTF…they didn’t have to kill him, Marius was offered various homes & even a business man was willing to pay thousands to save the giraffe! It seems it’s rules for one & rules for another in the EAZA operation! If they can’t or don’t want an animal that doesn’t fit their requirements, they should have a system in place whereby the un-wanted animal can always be offered an alternative home; if they can’t manage that…then perhaps they shouldn’t be breeding animals at all!!
Thanks to my dear friend on twitter.com/9marbar9 for heads up on these. Please sign:
Editor’s note: Liz Tyson is Director of UK charity, The Captive Animals’ Protection Society (CAPS). She previously lived and worked in the Colombian Amazon on conservation projects. She is a board member of conservation charity Neotropical Primate Conservation and a doctoral researcher at the University of Essex, School of Law. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely hers.
Liz Tyson
(CNN) — The killing of a young giraffe named Marius at Copenhagen Zoo sparked international outrage this weekend. On Sunday, he was shot with a bolt gun then publicly dissected before being fed to the lions.
In its defence, the zoo has argued that Marius’ death was necessary to protect the genetic diversity of his species. It was claimed that to allow Marius to take up space that could be used to house another animal with more desirable genetic make-up may hinder conservation breeding programs.
Contraception which required sedation is dangerous and giraffes might die during the procedure. As such, Marius’ birth could not have been safely prevented. Marius could not be re-homed because sending him somewhere other than a zoo which was a member of the European Association for Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) could result in him being sold into a circus, which would be againstEAZA rules.In effect, the zoo’s hands were tied, it was implied.
None of these arguments appear to stand up to scrutiny.
Given that zoos claim that animals are kept in order to support the conservation of threatened species, it is therefore unclear why any member of Marius’ subspecies should be held captive at all.
It was further confirmed that a contraceptive for giraffes has been developed in the last few years whichallows females to be safely injected at a distancethus suggesting that Marius’ birth was not inevitable.
The director of EAZA supported the stance that Marius had to die and encouraged people to consider the “bigger picture.” But EAZA itself is less than consistent in its approach to inbreeding and, indeed, in its concern for the ultimate fate of animals in its member zoos.
Due to the serious welfare implications and the lack of conservation value of inbred animals, breeding of white lions is theoretically not allowed in EAZA zoos. In practice, both West Midland Safari Park and Paradise Wildlife Park in the UK breed white lions.
Both are EAZA members and yet, despite vociferously supporting the killing of Marius to prevent the same problem, a blind eye has been turned by EAZA to the persistent inbreeding of other species in its zoos. White lions are, perhaps tellingly, a great crowd pleaser.
In 2012 West Midland Safari Park were revealed to have sent four white lions to a circus trainer, who sent them on to a Japanese circus. That the safari park remains an EAZA member means that the rules on sending animals to non-EAZA collections are not consistently applied. Despite this, no exception was made for Marius.
In fact, rather than Marius being a tragic exception, the killing of animals considered to be surplus to requirements by zoos is something which is common in the industry.A 2003 study suggested that there are around 7,500 animals deemed “surplus” in European zoos at any one time.
Whilst it cannot be undone, Marius’ death has served an important purpose in shining a spotlight on a practice which is normally kept well-hidden from public view. As long as there are zoos, there will be unwanted animals. And as long as there are unwanted animals, more like Marius will be killed.
It has long been recognised that conservation success is achieved not in city centre zoos or safari parks, but in natural habitats. We would urge anyone with a passion for conservation to support effective in situ efforts which are truly making a positive impact on species conservation.
Viewer Discrestion Advised – Danish Zoo criticized for killing giraffe
Published on 10 Feb 2014
CNN’s Fred Pleitgen on why thousands are angry after a zoo in Copenhagen culled a healthy giraffe.
Most animal charities & the public want to see a ban worldwide of wild animals being used in circuses. Now the owner of this circus is circulating his own petition to keep his Malta circus open. So please if you don’t agree with animals performing degrading tricks, kept behind bars & of course the cruelty that has been documented in circuses: PLEASE SIGN THE PETITIONS BELOW. We can’t let this circus continue, if it does through its petition, the flood gates for circuses using wild animals may open again; that would be tragic after all the hard work has been done to stop them!!
Circus promoter says 2013 could be last year for animal circuses in Malta due to the proposed ban.
But circus promoter Silvio Zammit has collected 5,000 signatures as part of a petition to overturn a proposal to ban animal circuses.
The circus has now moved to Ghajnsielem, Gozo, where Zammit hopes to continue collecting more signatures. The petition will then be passed on to the competent authorities.
Zammit, who has been bringing circuses to Malta for the past 16 years, said he could not allow the banning of animal circuses from Malta without taking any action.
“It was a personal initiative after finding out that the government had moved on to publish a White Paper proposing to ban animal circuses,” he said.
See all the animals, such as, Long horn cattle, Donkeys, Lama, Camels, Lions, Tigers, Zebra, Elephant, Giraffe, Baboon, Horses, Ponies, Donkeys performing pitiful & degrading acts; acts they would never do in the wild. The animal acts stop at 12 mins; then the human artists perform!I believe the only thing not seen is the Hippo; but is in a video below!!
He argued that only 390 persons took part in the consultation process initiated by the government, of which 49% said they were against such a circus.
“We know that the majority of these were NGOs, and NGOs do not reflect popular opinion. I am doing this petition on my own. I know that there are many others who would like to sign it, but I have neither the time nor the manpower to go on a nation-wide petition,” Zammit said.
He said he was “very happy” with the number of signatures collected: “This shows that the Maltese do love the circus. They won’t flood the streets of Valletta with placards to support the circus.”
He also said that a number of MPs from both sides of the House visited Circo Orfei this winter.“Some came with their children while others accompanied their grandchildren. They thanked me for the level of the show and all said they had fun,” Zammit said.
He however refused to name them.
The debate as to whether Malta should ban animal circuses for good has been going on for a number of years, with animal rights NGOs insisting that circuses solely operate to maximise profits while completely disregarding the safety of the animals and the adverse effects they may impose.
Animal Rights Coalition said veterinarians only attend to the animal’s physical needs and as a result, the psychological issues brought about by the circuses are not being addressed.
With a number of countries moving to ban animal circuses for good, Zammit said in Italy alone there were 800 circuses. He said the UK was one of the countries which will stop animal circuses as from next year. “But this was the result of many circuses caught mistreating their animals,” he said, adding that the circus he brought to Malta did not see animals performing any tricks and only a minimal part of the show was dedicated to animals.
Zammit argued that the circus animals were born in captivity “and therefore they do not know otherwise. Their trainers threat them like their pets”.
He said Animal Welfare Department officials and veterinarians made regular checks to verify that the animals were well-kept.
Circo Orfei’s travelling team is made up of 60 people, whose living depends on the shows, Zammit said.
“This is their life. They are a community who live on the road and have been doing so for years on end. This is how they earn a living… their bread and butter,” he said.
The Animal Rights Coalition has also called for a full ban on dolphinaria and aquaria. The coalition has said it was unjust to deny dolphins the right to roam free in their natural habitat and called for the ban on dolphinariums as these restrict the creatures to a mere pool.
The Coalition also said that this should extend to aquaria as in this case, animals are likewise being “confined to cages and restricted from roaming in their natural habitat”.
But Zammit feels that two weights and two measures were being applied when talking about animal circuses and aquaria.
He also said that circuses gave people the opportunity to see animals which would otherwise require them to travel abroad to zoos or safaris.
He insisted that a proper discussion was required and said he agreed that animals like elephants, pandas and monkeys should be banned. “What we have in our circus are horses, ponies, donkeys and tigers,” he said, adding that tigers in captivity lived for an average of 25 years while those in the wild lived for 12 years.
Circo Orfei also has a hippo and an emu as part of their travelling repertoire.
Published on 7 Jan 2013 – This video shows the hippo in the ring, but its towards the end of the video, after the trapeze act! What the hell is a hippo doing in a circus? Bloody outrageous!! Search CircoOrfei on You Tube to see all the animals when not entertaining :-http://youtu.be/GEMx3YVIRmg
Published on 6 Sep 2013 – This is about the lions & tigers in the outside enclosure plus RARE WHITE LIONS & TIGERS?? Are they interbreeding??:-http://youtu.be/K40RjOFsX4c
“The problem is with the press,” Nabil Sedki said on a recent afternoon, taking a deep drag on his cigarette as he settled into a giraffe-patterned armchair in his office. He was five days into the job. “The media fabricated the suicide.”
From ‘Occupy for Animals’ Please sign the petition below
The giraffe in question was a 3-year-old named Roqa, who, Sedki said, inadvertently hanged herself earlier this month after getting tangled in a wire inside her enclosure.
The state has launched three investigations — one purely forensic, another by the government’s official veterinary body and a third by a legal committee — “to see who will hang instead of the giraffe,” Sedki said with a wry laugh.
Zoos are prone to bad publicity, especially when something goes wrong. The government-run Giza Zoo, in the heart of Egypt’s chaotic capital, may be particularly susceptible, given the country’s floundering economy, the tumult of nearby political demonstrations and an overall poor track record in animal care.
In May, three black bears died in a single night under mysterious circumstances. Zoo authorities called it a bear “riot.” In 2007 and in 2008, local media reported that zoo-keepers were slaughtering the park’s camels for meat — to eat themselves, and to sell to other hungry Egyptians.
And this month, the independentAl-Masry Al-Youm newspaper reported that Roqa had committed suicide. The article went viral. (The same newspaper reported in August that the giraffes and other large animals at the zoo were so troubled by Egypt’s ongoing political unrest — especially the chants of protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood in a nearby public square — that they had been mulling suicide for a while.)
Petition by Occupy for Animals Luxembourg, Luxembourg
“Is there anyone who actually believes that this giraffe committed suicide?” Sedki asked. As he spoke, a fresh, stinging cloud of tear gas wafted in through an open doorway, and the thudding blasts of tear-gas cannons could be heard from the latest clashes between student protesters and police at neighbouring Cairo University.
The campus is just northwest of the 122-year-old zoo, the biggest and oldest of Egypt’s seven zoological parks. On its north flank, just outside the zoo’s main gate, is Nahda Square, which served as a permanent protest encampment for supporters of ousted Egyptian presidentMohamed Morsifor more than a month in the summer. Police used bullets and tear gas todisperse the protesters in August, killing scores of people.
When police fire tear gas at protesters, the irritating vapors inevitably make their way toward the animal enclosures, compelling zookeepers to wrap their faces in scarves on the worst of days. It has gotten to the animals, too, Sedki said.
“The sounds of the bullets and the tear gas affect the animals,” Sedki said. Some of the large animals, such as lions and hippos, have displayed “restlessness and tension,” he said.
Sedki said zoo authorities had moved some of the animals to different enclosures but found that they had few good options, given that all 80 acres of the zoo are bordered by roaring traffic and gritty urban sprawl.
For that same reason, Egyptians see the zoo as a rare — if dilapidated and underfunded — oasis of green. It costs about 70 cents (5 Egyptian pounds) to enter. Families bring picnics and set up camp for the entire day on the grassy medians. Couples stroll hand in hand, and bands of giggling teenagers roam.
“I know that in the West, going to the zoo is like going to a museum — you go to get knowledge,” Sedki said. “But here, they come to visit a garden, not a zoo.”
Animal rights activists — themselves a rare breed in Egypt — have long been concerned about conditions at Giza, which echo the nation’s widespread poverty and bureaucratic failings after decades of authoritarianism and turmoil.
“This is not a zoo,” said Mona Khalil, a founder of the Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals, which runs two shelters and provides free veterinary care to poor farmers on Cairo’s outskirts. “This is hell for animals.”
Many of the zoo’s employees earn less than $60 a month, activists say, and have little experience or training and even less incentive to protect the animals they care for. Instead, the employees follow visitors over the zoo’s muddy and potholed paths, offering scattered “facts” about the animals’ daily lives or an opportunity to get closer to them — in the hope that it will yield tips.
On a recent afternoon, some keepers touted the chance to hold a lion cub — or, if the visitor would prefer it, a monkey or a baby crocodile — for the equivalent of about $3.60.
Adult lions, cramped in iron-barred cages that resembled the circus pens of an earlier era, crunched on animal carcasses, as visitors used their cellphones to take pictures. Hippos and pelicans drifted through murky water. And a sickly black bear watched as a pair of stray cats hunched over its food dish.
“Anyone want a picture with a baby lion? Anyone want a picture with a baby lion?” an employee droned as he stood next to a row of cages, a camera around his neck.
Another zoo-keeper gestured toward a rhinoceros that was nosing around in the shade of some trees. “Her husband died six months ago,” the keeper said in a cheerful, casual tone. “She killed him with her horn.” Without further explanation, the keeper quickly walked away.
No one in the zoo’s administrative office was quite sure how many animals are kept on the premises. Staff members searched through files in the high-ceilinged administrative headquarters — a building full of binders, and apparently devoid of computers — but were able to find figures only from 2009: 78 species of mammals, 82 species of birds and 26 species of reptiles — for a total of 4,631 individual animals. Of those, about “forty-something” are lions, Sedki said.
Chained elephant – Giza Zoo – August 2012
Published on 24 Aug 2012 – Investigation conducted by Hatem Moushir, 3 August 2012 – in Giza Zoo
In 2010, the zoo began to separate most of its forty-something lions by sex — an effort to stem the sky-rocketing population. Meat is pricey, and space is limited.
To cope, many of the big cats are packed two per cage. They eat mostly donkey carcasses, zoo-keepers said, and they “fast” one day a week.
Black in the Giza Zoo 09/21/2012 – Living conditions of Lions
Published on 22 Sep 2,012 – Part of investigation conducted by Hatem Moushir, 21 September 2012 – in Giza Zoo
News comments:– Felinis Wrote – 12/18/2013 6:27 PM GMT
Kabul, Afganistan: Marjan the lion was injured in 1994 when a visitor tried to impress his friends by climbing into his den. When the animal’s mate attacked and killed him, the man’s brother came to the zoo the next day and threw a grenade at Marjan in revenge. The explosion blinded him, broke his jaw and destroyed seven teeth.
The 25 year-old beast who was half-blind, lame and almost toothless died of old age in 2002 only weeks after an international animal rescue mission arrived to help him.
At another mid-east zoo four animals died after being fed tobacco by visitors.
Giza Zoo – August 2012
Listen to an interview on Wildtime RadioAnimal rights activist Dina Zulfikar talked to WILD TIME RADIO about the zoos, CITES, the lack of green space in their country, and more.
Sara Abou Bakr / May 11, 2013 “Calling all animal activists:-“
Reports on the news stated that the three female bears were fighting over a male.
Two days later, the Al-Watan newspaper broke the story; the three bears died because of a sedative overdose, leading to two falling over and breaking several bones, while the remaining one drowned.
A photo of a starving lioness at Alexandria Zoo ignited anger last August, gaining international scrutiny from animal activists. The zoo manager assured them the case was under control. A day later, the lioness died.
Similar stories of the negligence of the seven governmental zoos in Egypt can be easily dug up. One only has to walk through one of them to see the abuse; malnourished lions, hippos swimming in filthy ponds, wild dogs injured and left untreated, seals that perform tricks on command, brown bears spoon-fed and petted by visitors
You do not have to be a specialist to see the abuse first-hand.
Giza Zoo, because it is located in the capital, gets the lion’s share of media attention, followed by Alexandria Zoo. The conditions of the other governmental zoos in Beni Suef, Fayoum, Kafr El-Sheikh, Mansoura, and Tanta are even worse. Puny and injured animals suffering from malnourishment is a major concern.
Gaza is another place you wouldn’t necessarily think of having a zoo. In recent years the Palestinian city has suffered from Israeli blockades and internal conflicts, and its zoo hasn’t fared much better. Today it houses two lions, a few monkeys, some birds, rabbits, cats, dogs and two fake zebras: donkeys painted with black and white stripes (pictured).
The zoo once had two real zebras in its collection, but they died of malnutrition during the Israel-Hamas war, when there was actual fighting within the zoo itself. Zoo officials later tried to replace the zebras, but finally opted for painted donkeys due to limited funds.
Donkeys painted to look like Zebra:-http://www.animals-zone.com/saddest-zoos-world
Founded in 1891, the Giza Zoo in Cairo, Egypt, was once among the best zoos in Africa. But today it’s a shell of its former glory, expelled from the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums in 2004 after failing an inspection. WAZA director Peter Dollinger wouldn’t tell Reuters in 2008 why exactly the zoo was expelled, saying only that “There were things that were not acceptable.”
Zookeepers reportedly augment their salaries by charging patrons to enter the cages with the animals, and two men broke into the zoo in 2007, killing two camels. Dozens of birds died from avian flu in 2006, and more than 500 were slaughtered to stem the outbreak. According to the Global Post, zoo workers also inhumanely killed two gorillas in 2004 thought to be infected with the Ebola virus.
Two femalegiraffesat a zoo in central Poland died after vandals broke into the facility, and officials said Tuesday they are trying to find a companion for their last remaining giraffe – a male.
Wikipedia
The break-in at the zoo in Lodz city occurred Saturday night, and the unidentified hooligans overturned signs and threw benches and garbage cans into animal runs, including one near where the three giraffes were.
Barbara Wicinska, a zoo official, said one of the female giraffes was found dead early Sunday, and a post-mortem showed she had died of stress. The other female giraffe was found dead early Monday. A test is planned, but zoo officials believe she died for the same reason.
The head of the zoo’s breeding section, Wlodzimierz Stanislawski, said management is checking with other zoos in Europe to see if it can find a companion for Tofik, the widowed male giraffe. Like his two dead companions, Tofik is from the endangered Rothschild giraffe subspecies.
“It is a tough task because there are not many Rothschild giraffes in zoos, but we will try to fill in this sudden gap,” Stanislawski said.
Meanwhile, city authorities and the national Animal Guard watchdog organization have offered a 5,000 zlotys ($1,500; euro 1,100) reward for any clues that help find the hooligans.
Investigators also are trying to find out why the zoo’s security guards didn’t call police until hours after the hooligans left the facility, which is not equipped with CCTV cameras.
“We obviously contacted the PSNI and I understand they have apprehended two youths.”
Mr Challis said there was little chance that more dangerous animals could have been let out of their enclosures.
“Security is pretty good around the zoo and it’s appropriate to the species we’re looking after. The lions and tigers and indeed giraffes were all safely locked up for the night,” he said.
“Thankfully instances of break-ins and release of animals are very rare.”
DUE TO THE NATURE OF THIS BLOG - SOME PICTURES & VIDEOS CAN & WILL BE VERY GRAPHIC - SO PLEASE, VIEW THIS BLOG AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.
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PLEASE NOTE.....
Not all of my posts will be current news, or even about animal abuse! I do like to share other animal news, uplifting stories or videos; some that are funny or just touch the heart!
If I have anything to say on any post, you will see it in bold blue writing. I try to remain a lady, but it's hard to contain my anger & emotions at the some of the stories I post; I don’t have a heart of stone, tears stain many articles I write!
Lastly, my apologies for any errors; I am learning whilst posting, so if you find anything that doesn't work or a broken link, sorry, I'm only human!!!!
ABOUT THESE POSTS
I would just like to make readers aware, that I search for stories on the internet; regards animal abuse etc. I copy stories etc. from the internet; assuming these stories are correct at time of publishing. Having said that, sometimes the press get it wrong! So I just want to add that at the time of me posting a news story, I presume all the facts seem present & correct.
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