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Marius, a healthy male giraffe just three days his second birthday, imprisoned at the Copenhagen Zoo his entire short life, was murdered on February 9, 2014, by a zoo executioner yielding a Winchester rifle because the zoo officials considered Marius a waste product without any value, the Zoo stating that his “genes are well represented in the breeding programme.” Marius's keeper lured him with a piece of rye bread, his favorite food, into a yard away from the other giraffes, and as he bent down his long neck to take the treat from his keeper's hand, he was murdered with a shot from a bolt gun to his head.

This cold, calculated, cynical, and callous act devoid of compassion was followed by Marius’ body then suffering the indignity of being dissected in public in front of adults and children, sending the potent message to the kids that such lives are worthless, and the fed to other zoo animals, again in front of the children. Psychology Today magazine expressed outrage and disgust, nothing that the children were being taught that killing animals for entertainment was acceptable. The Copenhagen zoo director argued, in an incredulously outrageous statement, that this had educational valid for the children, providing an understanding of the anatomy of a giraffe. Seeing bored, depressed, and often neuroses-laden animals resulting from life-long captivity pacing, swaying, or circling constantly teaches children nothing about real animal behavior, let alone a dead animal being fed to lions, tigers, and leopards on the concrete in a zoo. Parents certainly wouldn’t take their children to prison to teach them about human behavior.

The murder of Marius occurred despite several offers to adopt the two-year old, and an online petition to save him Adoption offers for Marius were received from zoos throughout Europe, the Krakow Zoo, Yorkshire Wildlife Park, Dutch Landgoed Hoenderdaell wildlife park, and the Swedish Frösö Zoo, as well as an offer by a private individual. All were rejected in favor of murder, as was simple sterilization because Marius would “take up needed space,” and signatures on a petition of 27,000 people were ignored. The zoo noted that it “culls” 20 to 30 animals every year, including antelopes, llamas, wild boars, and goats and a spokesman for the European zoo association stated that each such zoo murders about five otherwise healthy “large mammals” every year. The Hellabrunn Zoo in Munich, Germany said the zoo would never perform a similar public dissection but that some zoo animals such as goats and guinea pigs are killed as food for predators (February 9, 2014).