news Newborn Orangutan Murdered By Swiss Zoo

[GraceRandolph]

A baby Orangutan was killed—not euthanized—at the  Basel Zoo after her mother, Revital, died. This is a case of "zoothanasia" as I call it, because killing the baby was not done as a mercy killing because she was suffering from interminable pain or from an incurable disease—she wasn't. The zoo decided the baby wouldn't live or have a quality life because she was motherless. This claim is unfounded. (see Note 1) Shame on them. 
 

 

Killing the baby is ethically indefensible no matter what zoo administrators say. This is not a "radical animal rights" position but rather all about decency and respect for the life of every single individual—the baby should not have been killed. And, of course, the mother should never have been impregnated. 
 

Zoos kill otherwise healthy animals for a wide variety of self-serving reasons. Many people don't know this. Zoos call it "management euthanasia" to sanitize this heinous act. The individuals are written off as “surplus animals” and slaughtered. 

In a BBC News essay by Hannah Barnes called "How many healthy animals do zoos put down?" we learn: “EAZA [European Association of Zoos and Aquaria] does not publish these records or advertise the number of healthy animals that have been culled, but executive director Dr Lesley Dickie estimates that somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 animals are 'management euthanised' in European zoos in any given year.” 

Three thousand to five thousand animals isn't a small number at all. Indeed, I was shocked when I learned this fact and that this large number of animals was considered to be disposable at the whim of zoo administrators who then come up with lame excuses for why they killed the animals. 
 

In January 2018 we learned that a zoo in Sweden had killed — they used the word “euthanized”—nine healthy lion cubs since 2012 because they couldn’t afford to keep them. People who didn't know that zoos do these sorts of sickening things are incensed as they should be. After Marius the young giraffe was slaughtered in the Copenhagen Zoo in 2014, I had contact with people from all over the world about how surprised and upset they were, including many who never before had gotten involved with animal protection. 
 

Animals who understandably escape from their cages and horrific lives at zoos also are routinely killed. In December 2022, three chimpanzees were shot dead soon after they escaped from their cages in the Furuviksparken zoo in Sweden, and a fourth was also killed shortly thereafter. The zoo was closed and the chimpanzees were killed because the zoo didn’t have enough anesthetic on hand. They also said that the chimpanzees were killed because of concerns for human safety.

Edited April 4, 2023 by GraceRandolph

[A.R.L]

A zoo is a stupid idea that should never have existed, people from the future will look at us disgustingly and barbarously when they learn throughout history that we used to have this kind of place for whatever reason, mostly for fun.

[arceus]

This wouldn't happen to a hairless albino orangutan