Inbreeding Rules Kill Giraffe

[BlackJaq]

I am not a big fan of zoos either but the way this giraffe was killed and the way your average beef animal is killed is like... two totally different worlds. From what I gather this animal was killed at the zoo with minimal if any transportation.

A beef animal will generally be rounded up/mustered into yards. This can take hours and often the animals are kept in the yards over night (usually with water but not always) and then are herded on a truck in the morning. Sometimes they go on a truck right away. They are then crammed into a stock trailer, usually they will never have been on any sort of vehicle before so the experience can be pretty scary. Some may have been transported before. Usually stock trailers are open and I often see them driving down the highway in the middle of the day in 30-40 degrees. Yes they get some wind through the cracks but have you driven down the highway in a convertible with the top down on a hot summer day before? Still pretty warm...

There is no food or water on the trailer. Some need to be transported pretty long distances, sometimes even days. They are supposed to be unloaded and watered + fed every so often, not everybody does this but some people do. Then they go back on the truck and travel however long it takes to get to the abattoirs.

Once again they are unloaded and kept in yards, usually with water. What happens next varies a lot, sometimes it will be their turn right away and so they are taken into the building an onto the kill floor, all totally new experiences for them. Most of the time workers are well trained, sometimes they are not. Most of the time the bolt gets off well and hits the right spot.

Sometimes animals need to wait their turn or arrive after hours and will have to wait in the yards until it is their turn. There is usually a lot of manure and no feed in the yards. There is no way to completely contain the smells of killing hundreds, sometimes thousands of animals a day in one location, so the animals waiting would have a pretty good whiff of what is about to happen to them.

I think a quick death at home in a familiar environment is a pretty different way to go than being transported to slaughter on a truck with a bunch of other animals. Sometimes animals go down on a truck. Sometimes their feet slip out of the slats on the side. Sometimes a braking maneuver means an animal is crushed on a trailer that is not quite full enough.

I don't think it makes a difference to the animal who does or doesn't eat its meat after it dies.

Edited February 11, 2014 by BlackJaq

[kelpiecuddles]

I'm just wondering, a lot of people commented that they didn't like the publicity around it. Wondering though how much of that publicity was at the hands of the zoo and how much was as a result of the protest mill and media circus? I heard about it from a petition sent around facebook, not any publicity from the zoo. I suppose they would have to make the information available somehow that the dissection was taking place otherwise no one would have know about it but I suspect it was the media not the zoo that blew it all out of proportion.

[tdierikx]

Yep - my gripe is more with the public spectacle of the killing and disection than the fact that Marius was slaughtered and used as food for the other animals - the latter I can wholly understand... the former, not so much.

T.

[OSoSwift]

Why was he bred in the first place?

If they had no use for his genes I would be guessing they would have no use for a females genes either.

Things die, things eat, don't have a problem with that. I do have a problem with making a huge public spectacle of it. I do have an issue with the meat being fed out, I do have an issue with the public spectacle.

We grow our own meat my kids are well versed in life's circle. They also know that all living creatures are to be treated with respect, even in death.

[kiwifeathers]

While I find the public nature of Marius to be distasteful, I am glad that he was allowed to live those two years rather than removed from his mother straight away, which surely would have been more traumatic for her. I agree that if culling is to be done, it should not be done in such a manner that it becomes 'entertainment'.

With regards to gorillas, at the moment castration of 'excess' males is happening more in European zoos (which I don't agree with, but that's a whole different subject!), otherwise bachelor groups and less breeding could be solutions. Taronga also has two males off display, and I am very curious to know what will become of them. It is of course possible that euthanasia may be considered as an option for this species as well, which I find repulsive, if it becomes too difficult to place males.

I think there is a group of three males coming to Christchurch's Orana Wildlife Park from Taronga when they finish building the exhibit. They will be the first Gorillas in NZ. Probably these two males and maybe another one thats been/going to be retired from their breeding program.

[Steve]

I don't expect that a zoo animal which has been observed and enjoyed by people will be killed with a bloody cheer squad watching and an audience any more than I expect a cow or sheep to be paraded in the shopping centre , killed in front of an audience and chopped up ready for the table with humans eating it to demonstrate the food chain. I think its tacky to make killing things for any reason a public spectator sport.

[Dame Aussie]

Agree Steve. I also question why they even bred him in the first place if they knew they couldn't use the genetics?

[Guest donatella]

Yep I agree with the above also, no amount of trying to explain the whys makes it any less disgusting in my eyes. If they were going to make a spectacle and education out of him they should have done it tastefully.

[grizabella]

I agree with you Steve and Aussie3. That he was bred at all is what I consider to be poor population management, although that is the way species are managed in European zoos.

[dotdashdot]

Cannibalgoldfish, I'm trying to find the guidelines now, but it's proving more difficult to when I actually needed them, but only fairly recently you are not allowed to breed white tigers, tigons/ligers in Australia anymore. I don't remember if it includes White Lions.

I will keep trying to find them and post when I have.

could be wrong, but would it be something in the ZAA (formerly ARAZPA) guidelines?

From where I stand I don't think he should have been bred at all. My uncle has been a studbook keeper of sea lions since the 90's and in that whole time there has been ONE mating that was not planned (through a fence with a very obliging female) and even then there was no actual problem with the pregnancy other than it wasn't planned. Any animal that had no breeding potential would simply be carefully managed or placed on contraceptives to prevent pregnancy, and this is how an epileptic seal has not been bred from in her nearly 20 years of life.

I don't particularly agree with the public killing and feeding, he wasn't just meat, he was a (probably) much loved resident for a couple of years... The use of his body as meat however, better than being wasted and left to rot in the ground.

[BlackJaq]

I really can't see how it matters to the animal if it was killed and dissected in a tasteful manner or not. Animals are killed and dissected all the time and if it is done in front of a crowd then it is public.

I think all possible use was made of this animal, and that includes a public dissection. As somebody else said, frogs and parts of other animals are routinely dissected in school, what's the difference? Simply the fact that this animal had a name and was on display in a zoo before it died?

I think it is up to the owner of an animal whether they decide to breed it and what to do with the offspring, so long as everything is done humanely. I bet plenty of you guys aren't happy when people try to tell you what to do with your animals, including slaughtering them, docking their tails, etc

I think the only reason there is an outcry is because somehow a giraffe is more exotic and perhaps "more important" than a cow or a pig in some people's minds.

[Steve]

I really can't see how it matters to the animal if it was killed and dissected in a tasteful manner or not. Animals are killed and dissected all the time and if it is done in front of a crowd then it is public.

I think all possible use was made of this animal, and that includes a public dissection. As somebody else said, frogs and parts of other animals are routinely dissected in school, what's the difference? Simply the fact that this animal had a name and was on display in a zoo before it died?

I think it is up to the owner of an animal whether they decide to breed it and what to do with the offspring, so long as everything is done humanely. I bet plenty of you guys aren't happy when people try to tell you what to do with your animals, including slaughtering them, docking their tails, etc

I think the only reason there is an outcry is because somehow a giraffe is more exotic and perhaps "more important" than a cow or a pig in some people's minds.

Well for the record its not about what animal it was for me and its not even about any thought the animal suffered. To turn killing an animal into a spectator sport for me is a step back for humanity.

[BlackJaq]

I agree that turning an animal's death into a "spectator sport" is a slippery slope. Was the public actually present when the animal was killed or was only the dissection afterward open to the public?

I think it is hardly a "sport" if the animal is killed cleanly and quickly. I saw no mention of somebody chasing the giraffe around an arena with a bunch of lassos or spears like some kind of tripping or bull fighting event.

[Katdogs]

Population control... rings a bell in my slow memory that Dubbo/Taronga sells excess deer (or other grazing creatures) to private properties for 'hunting'? I don't really want to go and look for the story, but it was a couple of years ago.

[Guest donatella]

I agree that turning an animal's death into a "spectator sport" is a slippery slope. Was the public actually present when the animal was killed or was only the dissection afterward open to the public?

I think it is hardly a "sport" if the animal is killed cleanly and quickly. I saw no mention of somebody chasing the giraffe around an arena with a bunch of lassos or spears like some kind of tripping or bull fighting event.

I'm pretty sure it was a bullet to the head

[Simply Grand]

Delete coz I got confused

Edited February 12, 2014 by Simply Grand

[LisaCC]

Cannibalgoldfish, I'm trying to find the guidelines now, but it's proving more difficult to when I actually needed them, but only fairly recently you are not allowed to breed white tigers, tigons/ligers in Australia anymore. I don't remember if it includes White Lions.

I will keep trying to find them and post when I have.

could be wrong, but would it be something in the ZAA (formerly ARAZPA) guidelines?

Thats where I originally found it for an assignment two years ago, but now the website has changed and I can only find their "public stances", not their actual guidelines.

Stuffed if I can find the assignment either.

[kelpiecuddles]

I remember the lady at Mogo zoo talking about white lions, as they aren't actually a cross I thought you could still breed white lions and white tigers, I thought the issue was around stamping out hybridisation.

[OSoSwift]

I find the act of the death and public display was tastless and inappropriate.

How we treat other living beings in life and death defines us a human beings. An animal has to die, fine, I have no issue with that ( apart from why the hell breed him int he first place?). Turning it into a spectator sport is in bad taste and not instilling values in children and people is a sad reflection on society.

Edited February 11, 2014 by OSoSwift

[cannibalgoldfish]

I remember the lady at Mogo zoo talking about white lions, as they aren't actually a cross I thought you could still breed white lions and white tigers, I thought the issue was around stamping out hybridisation.

They aren't a cross, they are a genetic mutation of an existing species(or subspecies) But to breed white cubs you need white or white carrier parents. Rather than a happy accident they are now bred because people want to see them, to the expense of other normal coloured lions with the same genes. There are just as many threatened subspecies of lions, the adverage person doesn't care because they aren't pretty.

Eg, Tsavo lions are distinct because the males are mostly maneless. Do you see them in a zoo?

Edited February 11, 2014 by cannibalgoldfish