Danish zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe | Hacker News Reader

Danish zoo sparks outrage by killing healthy giraffe

theguardian.com

11 pointslinux_devil15 comments

Get over it. The meat from the giraffe was fed to other animals in the zoo.

Hundreds, if not thouands, of cows are killed in Denmark each day to provide meat, hides, and other products for people in Denmark and abroad.

It almost seems like animal classism. I feel the same way when people call the cops on their neighbors for leaving a dog outside in a yard all day, but express no moral outrage at the plight of stray dogs.

Good example!

Not a good example. The neighbors are likely familiar with the dog, and the neighbor, but not with the stray.

Consider that most people care much more if a close friend dies than if some stranger on the other side of the world dies.

But isn't the innocent and natural bias toward sympathy with familiar subjects an ultimate cause of classism?

Certainly not. A wealthy slaveholder could feel sympathy with the slaves and not want them beaten unnecessarily, and care more about the good treatment of the slaves of neighbors than to those held on another land and continent.

The upper-class homes of 1800s Britain had many working class servants. I have no doubt that in general there was some sympathy more for one's own servants over those of a neighbor's, and even more than for British landowners in Ireland.

That is, classism exists even in the presence of "the innocent and natural bias toward sympathy", because there's nothing in sympathy which demands the object of sympathy be treated as an equal.

And people buy rats to feed them to snakes. That isn't the point. If there was a giraffe farm that raised giraffes to be fed to lions, you wouldn't here much about it. But the worldwide giraffe population is fairly low. Its also interesting that several zoos offered to take it. I find it hard to believe that ALL the zoos that offered would have had the same inbreeding issues. If that is the case, then there is a bigger problem

> The zoo defended the decision to slaughter Marius, saying that to send Marius to another zoo would also risk problems of inbreeding, as Marius's genes were already well represented among giraffes at the zoo.

Is it not possible to fix a giraffe? I know it's possible with cats.

reference pls? how does one fix them cats?

It also took me a couple seconds to understand what the parent was saying.

He's saying that, if the concern is with inbreeding, why not neuter it [as you would a cat]. Which, to me, isn't a bad question.

For those curious, the giraffe may have been killed (or "stunned" and then killed some other way) with one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_bolt_pistol

Made famous by No Country for Old Men.

According to Danish newspapers the giraffe had anesthesia, then it was put down with a bolt pistol.

Here's a statement in English from the zoo in question ⌘ http://www.zoo.dk/BesogZoo/Nyhedsarkiv/2014/Februar/Why%20Co...

I would be more outraged about the fact that some people brought their childrent to an autopsy :)

Yeah... If people could stop linking to junk food news that'd be great...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com