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Worse than Nazis: German zoo staff get death threats for feeding baboons to lions
The Tiergarten Nuremberg zoo had initially announced plans to cull the baboon population, last year, when numbers exceeded 40.
A German zoo has come under fire for feeding baboons to lions there. The Tiergarten Nuremberg culled the baboon population in the zoo, due to overcrowding in the enclosure.
The zoo euthanized 12 baboons at the end of July and then fed some of the carcasses to lions housed there. The death threats started at this point.
Some of the remains of the baboons were also used for research, Sky News reported, but the rest became food for the zoo's carnivores.
When the zoo had initially announced plans to cull the baboon population, last year, when numbers exceeded 40, protesters gathered outside to express their outrage. Naturally, things have come to a boil with the news of these baboons being fed to the animals there.
Zoo director defends move
The zoo's director, Dr Dag Encke, defended the move, telling Sky News “We love these animals. We want to save a species. But for the sake of the species, we have to kill individuals otherwise we are not able to keep up a population in a restricted area.”
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He also shared that the police are investigating cases where he and his staff received death threats.
“The staff are really suffering, sorting out all these bad words, insults and threats,” Encke shared.
Zoo staff get threats
The zoo director shared that the normal threat is 'we will kill you, and we'll feed you to the lions'. However, he took umbrage to the Nazi parallels being drawn.
“But what is really disgusting is when they say that's worse than Dr Mengele from the National Socialists, who was one of the most cruel people in human history. That is really insulting all the victims of the Second World War and the Nazi regime,” he said.
Josef Mengele, who got the moniker Angel of Death, was a Nazi officer known for conducting deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.
However, this is not the first zoo to cull animals. The Copenhagen Zoo, in 2014, killed an 18-month-old giraffe and fed it to lions, to avoid inbreeding.
In July, this year, a Denmark zoo courted controversy when it sought unwanted pets, so it could feed the predators hosted there.
