Switzerland
Zoo euthanizes healthy baby orangutan – although there was another option
The baby orangutan at Basel Zoo would not have had a chance of surviving after the death of its mother (symbol image)
© blickwinkel / Imago Images
After the death of his mother, a youngster was put to sleep at Basel Zoo. There would still have been the possibility of hand-rearing – but according to the zoo this would have meant a “path of suffering”.
Killing animals is always the last resort at the zoo – but sometimes there is simply no alternative. This is the situation at Basel Zoo, which had to make a difficult decision. It was about a newborn baby orangutan whose mother had died.
Orangutan Revital was found dead in her enclosure. She had given birth to the young only four days earlier. “It was a shock to find her lifeless,” the zoo said. The cause of death is still unclear. However, it was immediately clear that the baby would not be able to survive without its mother. So the zoo decided to put the animal to sleep.
Zoo Basel: Raising the orangutan by hand was out of the question
“The euthanasia took place in consultation with those responsible for the stud book and various orangutan experts,” the zoo wrote on Instagram. As a result, there were numerous protests from users and animal lovers, who pointed out that the young animal could also have been raised by hand.
However, this possibility was out of the question for the zoo. “Hand rearing is only a short-term solution,” the experts explained. “If a great ape is raised by hand, it is conditioned to humans. As we know first-hand from the example of the gorilla lady Goma, this makes later reintegration into a ape group almost impossible. The animal is no longer accepted by its conspecifics as their own kind .”
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These long-term consequences were incorporated into the decision-making process. Ultimately, the decision was made to euthanize. “You shouldn’t confuse the short-term success of hand-rearing with the long-term goal,” zoo director Oliver Pagan told the “Basler Zeitung”. The young animals would suffer from it for the rest of their lives, he added to SWR. They wanted to spare the young orangutan this, .
Sources:Basel Zoo on Instagram / “Basler newspaper” / SWR
Watch the video: A visitor to the zoo in the Indonesian city of Pekanbaru caused a stir with a careless action. The man climbed over a barrier to prank an orangutan. When the visitor was about to record a video of the action, the great ape fought back.