10 February 2014

Why did Copenhagen Zoo kill its giraffe?

Marius was said to be physically healthy, but the zoo said it followed recommendations

A young giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo has been euthanised - in the words of officials - to prevent inbreeding. The BBC examines the reasons for the action, which caused an outcry. The zoo says this was done because the genes of the giraffe, named Marius, were too similar to other giraffes in a breeding programme run by the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA). Breeding closely related animals increases the chances that rare, harmful genes are expressed in offspring. Two copies of a gene are inherited - one version from each parent. One of these copies might be harmful (deleterious), but if the other parent carries a non-harmful version of the gene, pairing them up might not result in any adverse consequences for offspring. When parents are closely related, it increases the chances that two harmful copies of a gene will pair up. According to Joerg Jebram, who oversees the European endangered species programme for giraffes, those animals born in zoos will eventually need to be moved away from their family group once they reach sexual maturity. Giraffe breeding groups in zoos are made up of a single bull together with a group of females. So female offspring must be removed to prevent inbreeding, and bulls must be removed somewhere around the age of 18-24 months to prevent fighting.

Mr Jebram commented: "Zoos could design new giraffe facilities, but many don't have that option. "A young bull could theoretically be sent to an all-female group as stud, but experts prefer a larger, more mature male for that, and Marius didn't fit that bill." "A final option is sending the giraffe to a zoo that doesn't participate in the EAZA-led breeding programme, but that could leave the giraffe or its offspring being sold into worse circumstances, such as those of a circus or private collection." Mr Jebram says he believes two other young bulls have been euthanised in Europe since 2012. Why not move Marius? The Copenhagen Zoo had turned down offers from at least two other zoos to take Marius and an offer from a private individual who wanted to buy the giraffe for 500,000 euros ($680,000). A spokesman for the institute, Tobias Stenbaek Bro, said a significant part of EAZA membership is that the zoos don't own the animals themselves, but govern them, and therefore can't sell them to anyone outside the organisation that doesn't follow the same set of rules. He said the zoo had followed the recommendation of the EAZA to put down Marius because there were already a lot of giraffes with similar genes in the organisation's breeding programme. Bengt Holst, Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director, said it had turned down an offer from Yorkshire Wildlife Park in the UK, which is a member of EAZA, because Marius' older brother lives there and the park's space could be better used by a "genetically more valuable giraffe". EAZA said it supported the zoo's decision to "humanely put the animal down and believes strongly in the need for genetic and demographic management within animals in human care". In one respect, Marius may have been a victim of giraffe-breeding success by European zoos. "Historically, many of the 347 zoos that belong to [EAZA] were eager to have giraffes of any kind," said Mr Jebram. "But in the past several years zoo breeding programmes have produced enough of some sub-species." So why not prevent closely related animals from breeding in the first place? Contraception and castration have been raised as possibilities, but both would require sedation. This is a relatively high-risk procedure in the case of giraffes, as they are liable to break their necks when they fall while sedated. However, Mr Jebram said that, in the past few years, a contraceptive has been developed that can be injected into females from a distance.