By Mark Shand During my years as a conservationist, I have witnessed many shocking sights: elephants hacked to death for their ivory; rhinos butchered for the supposed healing properties of their horns; and tigers ensnared in vicious traps so that their body parts can be harvested as a cure for impotence in parts of China and South-East Asia. I thought I’d seen just about every example of man’s inhumanity to his fellow creatures. But even I was shocked by the news that Copenhagen Zoo has shot dead a perfectly healthy young giraffe named Marius. Not only shot him, but dissected his corpse in front of an audience of zoo visitors, including many young children. In a final insult, his dismembered body was fed to its resident pride of lions.
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Marius the giraffe was killed at Copenhagen Zoo yesterday
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It was also revealed a lioness and her cubs were put down at Longleat
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Mark Shand says success in breeding animals can lead to culls
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Here he asks: Why are we breeding animals like lions in the first place?
There is no suggestion that @placeholder is similarly irresponsible, but there is no escaping the fact that, like Copenhagen and all zoos, it sometimes breeds more of a particular species than it can realistically keep.