OK, we didn't pick up on the story of Marius the healthy 18-month-old giraffe being put down by Copenhagen Zoo earlier this week. Because, well, this is a people section. And secondly, it just seemed incredibly bleak. And we were hoping it was a one-off incident.
But now there's another giraffe, also called Marius, also in Denmark, who is going to be put down as well. Marius 2 lives in Jyllands Park Zoo, in the west of Denmark. Zookeepers plan to put him down to make way for a new breeding partner for the female giraffe at the zoo.
'We can't have two males and one female. Then there will be fights,' says a spokesperson. 'If we are told we have to euthanise Marius, we would of course do that.'
Marius 1 was killed, despite being healthy, despite 27,000 signatories on a petition calling for him to live, and despite several other zoos saying that they would happily take him. He was killed because of strict laws surrounding animal in-breeding. No word, though, on why the Copenhagen zookeepers thought it would be appropriate to get an audience of children in to watch them skin Marius 1 and chop him up into little pieces to be thrown to the lions.
Despite protests in Copenhagen about the treatment of Marius 1, Jllyands Park Zoo have insisted that it's not inhumane to put down spare animals; 'Many places abroad where they do not do this, the animals live under poor conditions, and they are not allowed to breed either,' Jllyands Park zookeeper Janni Poulson told The Mirror, adding, 'We don't think that's OK.'
Is Denmark really as brutal as all its crime thrillers would suggest?
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.