Animals
Nuremberg Zoo wants to kill baboons for species protection
A group of baboons in their enclosure in the zoo in Nuremberg. photo
© Daniel Karmann/dpa
Can a zoo kill healthy animals and feed them to lions? The Nuremberg Zoo now wants to introduce what is already practice for some animal species to baboons. Animal rights activists protest.
The Nuremberg Zoo wants to kill individual animals in its baboon group in the future for reasons of species protection and population management. This was announced by zoo director Dag Encke.
The group had become too large and too inhomogeneous. Problems arise with the gene pool and social structures, explained Encke. Passing the animals on to other zoos at home and abroad is not an alternative, nor is releasing them into the wild possible.
The zoo sent a submission to the environmental committee of the Nuremberg city council. Encke wants to explain the problem there the week after next and initiate a social discourse. According to the zoo director, killing for population management and feeding them to other zoo animals is already practiced with hoofed animals such as goats, sheep and cattle, but also with kangaroos. It would be new territory for primates, at least in Nuremberg. The German Animal Welfare Association believes that killing is only a viable option as a last resort.