After Giraffe’s Death, PETA Germany Plasters Zoo With Anti-Zoo Message

Group Uses Light Projector to Display Message on Copenhagen Zoo Entrance: ‘Zoos Are Animal Prisons’

For Immediate Release:
February 12, 2014

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

The public killing of the 18-month-old giraffe Marius at the Copenhagen Zoo on Sunday, which sparked a public outcry around the world, prompted PETA Germany to send its own message to the zoo’s managers on Tuesday night. The PETA affiliate denounced the killing of the healthy bull giraffe and protested the so-called “surplus production” of animals in zoos by projecting an enormous message in lights on the zoo’s entrance. It read, “Zoos are animal prisons: You paid the ticket, Marius paid with his life.” A photo of the event is available here, and video footage is available here.

“Marius’ death should be a wake-up call for everyone to realize that a zoo’s purpose is to incarcerate intelligent animals for profit,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “PETA joins the world in mourning Marius. We only wish we saw this kind of outrage every time an animal is born into a life of deprivation at a zoo.”

The Copenhagen Zoo bred Marius into a life of captivity, allowing his mother to give birth to a calf while knowing that Marius would be considered “surplus.” All animals in zoos are denied everything that’s natural and important to them, and every aspect of their lives is manipulated and controlled. They are told when they will eat, what they will eat, when they can sleep, whom they can mate with, and when they can go outside. Giraffes such as Marius rarely die of old age in captivity. Had he not been killed and fed to other animals on Sunday, Marius would have spent his short life as an exhibit, stranded in a cold climate thousands of miles away from his true home.

For more information on animals in zoos, please visit PETA.org.