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(Not threatened) baboons in Hagenbeck Zoo
Photo:
Axel Heimken/dpa
The Nuremberg Zoo wants to kill individual animals in its baboon group. Director Dag Encke announced this. With 45 animals, the group had become too large and too inhomogeneous. It was said that problems arise with the gene pool and social structures. The zoo sent a corresponding template to the environmental committee of the Nuremberg city council.
According to the zoo director, killing for reasons of species protection and population management as well as feeding them to other zoo animals is already practiced with hoofed animals such as goats, sheep and cattle, but also with birds and kangaroos. The aim now is to promote the fact that it can also be sensible to kill individual specimens of species such as baboons, said Encke.
According to its director, the zoo has already tried unsuccessfully to regulate the subpopulation. Five baboons, for example, were delivered to Paris and eleven more to China. 15 animals that were also supposed to go to China remained in Nuremberg due to questionable keeping conditions. In addition, around 20 females were sterilized. However, since the result was not temporary, as assumed, this intervention also had long-term consequences. “We have narrowed the gene pool again and pretty much destroyed the social structure,” said Encke.
In a statement, the German Animal Welfare Association speaks of a “license to kill,” which it strictly rejects. Zoos have a responsibility towards every single individual in their care, which they have to live up to: "If that is not possible, the animal species must not be kept."
sak/dpa