18-Month-Old Healthy Giraffe Publicly Killed and Dismembered has been added as a related post - related requested by bareboards2 on that post.

This was a surprise. I was expecting "This guy is eloquent and intelligent" to be sarcasm. I thought the event being discussed was abhorrent and terrible, but he made an irrefutable case for it's legitimacy. I would think the people who came to watch the dissection of the giraffe would have known what they were in for beforehand, and his argument of the nature of it all, and the educational value (even just of the brutality of nature) struck me as sincere and realistic. Count me as having totally changed my mind of this incident. Sounds bad at first glance: actually has worth and was not necessarily an ignorant decision. I'm sure, and accept, that a lot of people will still disagree, but I'm glad I watched this.

"In the real life, lions eat meat."
Kind of said it all to me.
100% agree with artician.

I couldn't help replacing giraffe with human; "It is perfectly natural sir. You will die anyway, but your dying now preserves the gene pool."
It was scary listening to the cold, clinical, matter of fact way in which he described it as nothing but the giraffes genes that condemned it. Forget that it was healthy and enjoying - if that's the right word - its confined existence. Yes, the killing of animals goes on everyday. But this execution was totally unnecessary.

As for zoos; If it's a breeding programme fine, but I hate zoos that exist simply to have people pay to gawp at the caged animals. It is totally unnatural for them and even those born into it can display psychotic behaviour. As for caging birds? Don't get me started...

One thing not mentioned here is that the zookeepers were offered $600K to "sell" Marius to an individual. They refused -- giraffes are herd animals and Marius would have had a horrible existence. They could have done a lot of good with that money, but they turned it down as the ultimate ethical decision.

Here's the thing -- zoos are unnatural places and they lead to unnatural results. @A10anis is correct. Against this, one can ask what GOOD do zoos do? Maintain a healthy gene pool to populate the wild. Instill a love of nature in city folks.

And maybe help foster the wildlife conservation scientists and wildlife biologists for the future.

The world isn't perfect. Terrible things happen. The world is a place of scarcity of resources. As thinking, reasoning, feeling beings, we must make choices.

And as I keep thinking -- for those who are appalled at the waste of this young giraffe's happy life, maybe shift your focus to the lions? In this unnatural place of the zoo, those lions got fed their natural diet for a change. Consider being happy for them? In this unnatural world?

You say; "Those lions got fed their natural diet for a change. Consider being happy for them?"
Certainly. But I would be happier if the lions had hunted it down in the wild, as nature intended, rather than it being handed to them. Anyway, meat IS their natural diet, ANY meat. Or do they normally feed their captive lions on tinned cat food?
Nature takes no prisoners, it is cruel. But this wasn't nature. It was the slaughter of a perfectly healthy giraffe in their care, and is unconscionable.

*british *news *talks

Adding video to channels (British, News, Talks) - requested by ant.

People are upset an animal was killed before it's natural death? And yet, they're probably munching away on a hamburger and wings.

But what got my up vote: "children shouldn't be protected from real life."

You could do the same thing for potatoes. Replace 'potato' with 'baby'.

First you need to peel the baby and remove any eyes. Then chop and boil the baby until soft. Add some milk and water then mash the baby until you get an even smooth consistancy and serve with butter and salt.... mmmmm.

What's wrong with you? That's disgusting! You uncouth lout, you deserve a good slapping for that suggestion.
You should never boil and mash a baby, they're so much better roasted, skin on, with salt and rosemary.

I bet the giraffe, if we were able to ask, would be ok with a quick bullet to the head instead of being ripped apart, most likely suffocating to death as one or more lions crushed it's neck.

The death of the giraffe would be far more "inhumane" in the wild, but would still have the same outcome, and the lions are also protected from possible complications from eating a raw carcass.

I also upvoted shatterdrose's bringing the whole burger idea into this. What's the difference between the cattle that are normally slaughtered for the lions and the giraffe? Beyond your opinion on the meat that is.

...if only that really happened.
I'm 100% in favor of feeding human meat to animals, if it's safe for them to eat (most is probably poisoned). At least we could give a little back to nature in death, but people seem to want to keep it to themselves for some reason.
I'm also in favor of eugenics, or selective breeding of animals we have control of (including humans). We could have almost completely ended genetic diseases in one generation if only the thought didn't outrage and disturb most people. We could have also stopped the insane overpopulation with strict selective breeding, solving many if not most of the problems facing us today. That is a step removed from offing my little bro to feed the dogs....even I'm not that heartless in real life.
The only arguments I've heard against it are 'only Nazi's would do that', and, 'it's my right to pass on my (low quality) genes to as many mini-mes as I wish'. I disagree with those ways of thinking and see them as throwing out the baby with the bath water or short sighted self centered bad planning (or child abuse, depending on your genes).
Personally, I didn't think my 'better than average' genes were good enough to warrant creating another person to save them. (I have an above average IQ and no known physical genetic flaws, only crippling personality flaws and a broken body!) Perhaps you can imagine how I feel about the likes of Honey Boo-boo breeders negating my choice and then some.
I know, I know...I'm a disgusting narcissistic Nazi freak....but what about the argument I made?

Wow, a scientist made a decision for scientific reasons. Who knew?

Idiot fucking interviewer: we would "protect" children from this.

Yeah, heaven forfend that kids grow up learning that meat comes from animals or how a giraffes heart has to be huge.

It made me wonder, don't they still do dissection in schools? We did frogs in 5-6th grade.

I'm not sure how anyone could have thought this was a terrible thing? Lions have to eat meat, and animals will have to be killed for all their meals. If it wasn't a giraffe, it would be a cow. Is a giraffe's life more sacred than a cow's life? If so, why? Just because we are used to the idea of cows dieing for our food?

This is real life, and I don't think we should hide it from children. Shooting a giraffe in the head is brutal, but way less brutal than a bunch of lions biting it to death. If people aren't fans of feeding animals meat, then maybe they should be protesting against keeping carnivores in zoos.

All this talk of food, I'm starting to wonder what a barbequed giraffe steak would be like.

Godwin says you lost.

dude, I had felt the urge to pee about ten mins before....and then after reading this I had to RUN to the bathroom after the LMAO!

@A10anis

They probably didn't let the lions hunt it because there would be a chance of the lions being injured during an actual hunt (for example, if the giraffe fell over on top of one of the lions).

Also, there is probably not enough room in the zoo for an open hunt. And it seems even crueler than killing the giraffe outright. The animal will run for its life in terror and might even evade the lions for a while but since the hunt must take place in an enclosed area there's no hope of escape for it.

And as others have mentioned, the death itself would be a lot more painful.

I dont understand the interviewer or people being wildly upset by this, do they really think the zookeepers, who feed and care for this giraffe are simply sadistic morons who kills a giraffe for fun or just because they can? Obviously there was a reason for this.

I am , however, in principal against zoos. they may be educational on some level, but I have a distaste for the concept of keeping wild animals imprisoned like this. But I do think that most zoos and zookeepers do their best under the circumstances to keep the animals happy as they can be. Most wild animals in the wild of course, live in perpetual fear and/or hunger, and so forth, but I am much more in favour of us spending money on preserving wilderness, and stop the perpetual destruction of their natural habitat, instead of keeping specimens in special "cages"/zoos.

Did anyone else expect an "I like turtles." kind of interview?
http://videosift.com/video/I-like-Turtles

Couldn't agree more.

In the past, there was some justification from an educational point of view where most people could never see these animals in the wild. These days we have David Attenborough (and if anyone argues that seeing wild animals in person in a zoo enclosure is better than seeing them in their natural environment on tv, I will pimp slap them).

I also accept that there are some species that are so endangered that zoos provide a useful breeding program, but ultimately the goal should be to do away with zoos altogether.