Psychology Today - Animal Emotions
I call this "The Marius Effect" and the killing of these animals "zoothanasia" not euthanasia, or what zoos call "management euthanasia," which is mercy-killing those animals who are in interminable pain or mortally ill. These animals are healthy beings who do not have to be killed!
European zoos "management euthanize" between 3,000-5,000 animals a year
How many healthy animals do zoos put down?
The killing of Marius, a young and healthy giraffe at the Copenhagen Zoo, has resulted in a good deal of press about the ways in which zoos deal with what they call "surplus animals" [read "The Marius Effect": A Giraffe, Food, and Invasive Research]. It also has been responsible for motivating many people to speak out against this most inhumane practice. I call this "The Marius Effect" (see also) and the killing of these animals "zoothanasia" not euthanasia, or what zoos call "management euthanasia," which is mercy-killing those animals who are in interminable pain or mortally ill. These animals are healthy beings who do not have to be killed!
While some claim that killing animals like Marius because they are useless to a zoo's breeding program only occurs very rarely, this is not the case according to a recent essay by Hannah Barnes called "How many healthy animals do zoos put down?" published in BBC News Magazine. And, not only are the facts rather startling and disturbing, so is the language that zoo administrators and others use to refer to the animals themselves.
Words count: Animals are not "things" to be killed with regrettable apathy
Here are a few snippets from the BBC essay that should motivate you to read this essay and do something about the prevalence of zoothanasia:
Animals are not things, but referring to them as if they are unfeeling objects with whom we can do anything we choose makes it easier to kill them routinely and unnecessarily with disarming and regrettable apathy and disregard. The lives of individual animals matter very much, as stressed by those working in the rapidly growing field of compassionate conservation.
How zoos handle what they call "surplus animals" who many view as
"things" is a fertile area for research in anthrozoology, the study of
human-animal relationships, including the words we use to refer to other
animals and the business of science itself.
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