A German zoo has sparked outrage after it shot 12 healthy Guinea baboons during a cull, intending to feed their remains to other predators in the facility.
The cull happened at Tiergarten Nürnberg zoo in Nuremberg on Tuesday, one day after the zoo said it would begin preparations to kill the animals.
The zoo had previously announced in February 2024 that it was planning to cull some of the animals due to overcrowding, reports the BBC. At the time, they said the facility’s capacity for about 25 primates was far surpassed, with its baboon population ballooning to 40. At the time of their deaths, the zoo reported the baboon population had swelled to 43.
Conflict between the animals had become “more frequent” in the enclosure due to an excess of animals, which led to baboons sustaining injuries, officials told DW news.
In a post to social media, the zoo claimed they had tried to move some of the animals to other zoos that had taken in their animals in the past, including zoos in Paris and China, but those facilities were at capacity, too.
They also said contraceptive measures given to the baboons had failed, giving them no other option than to euthanize some of their animals, reports The Associated Press.
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On Tuesday morning, the zoo announced it was closing for the day for unspecified “operational reasons.”
That afternoon, police said seven activists climbed over a wall into the zoo, and one woman glued her hands to the ground. The group was detained a few metres inside the entrance.
Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion are arrested by the police after entering the grounds of Nuremberg Zoo.
Daniel Löb / Picture Alliance via Getty Images
The activists’ disruption did not stop the cull from going ahead. The zoo’s deputy director, Jörg Beckmann, confirmed that 12 baboons were chosen and shot. He said none of the selected animals were pregnant females or part of studies.
The Associated Press reports that samples from the dead animals were taken and that the baboons’ bodies will be offered up as food to other predators in the zoo.
Dag Encke, director of the Nuremberg Zoo, speaks during a press conference after the Nuremberg Zoo killed 12 baboons.
Daniel Karmann / Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Zoo director Dag Encke told a news conference that the killings followed “years-long consideration.” He argued that they had become necessary to maintain a healthy population because having a group that had outgrown its accommodation and couldn’t be reduced by other means was pushing the zoo into conflict with animal protection laws.
Animal right groups are incensed by the cull. At least one has threatened to sue the zoo.
“What we feared would happen, has,” Pro Wildlife told DW News, saying it had filed a criminal complaint against the zoo for violating animal protection laws. “Healthy animals had to be killed because the zoo maintained irresponsible and unsustainable breeding policies for decades.”
“This culling was avoidable and illegal in our opinion,” said the group.
“Animal welfare laws permits the killing of vertebrates only if there is a reasonable cause,” Christoph Maisack, who heads the German Legal Association for Animal Protection Law (DJGT), told the outlet, adding, “Letting them breed too freely cannot constitute such a reason.”
Animals are regularly euthanized in European zoos for a variety of reasons. Some past cases have caused an outcry; in 2014, the Copenhagen Zoo killed a healthy two-year-old giraffe named Marius, live-streamed the butchering of its carcass in front of a crowd that included children, and then fed it to lions.
— With a file from The Associated Press
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