Day 411 - On the subject of Marius...

Once again Denmark is thrust into the international spotlight. The last time it was our Prime Minister chatting up President Obama. The first lady was not amused.

Today it is a new controversy. One in which a young giraffe was euthanized and fed to lions. During zoo hours. In front of little kids.

So yeah, that's pretty messed up. The zoo is walking distance from my flat, but I chose not to pop in for the autopsy. I did have the displeasure of seeing poor Marius' bolt-gun perforated head on the cover of several Danish tabloids at the grocery store checkout. Great!

At the center of all of this is EAZA - European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. EAZA has very strict rules for selective breeding of its member's animals in order to maintain genetic diversity for long term survival of all of the animals in captivity - specifically those that are endangered. 

At any rate, it's a sad story. From a very non-scientific humanistic view, killing cute / cuddly animals with a bolt gun to the head is depressing. There are pros and cons here and any sane person / organization going forward with this had to at least consider the fact that - at the very least - it looks bad. For me, the reason that it's an INTERNATIONAL story really highlights the problems that Danes have when they have to interract with non-Danes.

There's a general lack of self awareness. How will others view this? How will others feel about this? How does this represent us? Denmark? Here, for the most part, it's a non-issue. Almost every Dane I've spoken to doesn't understand the outrage. That's the crux of the problem. I'm only speaking in generalities here, but empathy isn't necessarily a strong Danish trait. The idea of thinking, hmmm, what will someone else think about this? It's not common.

When you combine that with a very matter-of-fact cold-and-calculated way of explaining what you've done, you get this reaction from the world community. Ricky Gervais is probably right here.

“Destroying a beautiful healthy animal because it was surplus to your needs just isn’t good enough.”

On the flip side, the people who did this didn't even consider the fact that it would be a big deal!? Of course we'll do the autopsy in public, it will be a learning experience for children! Lions eat giraffes. It is a fact! More learning! 

These are complicated issues that have been handled in a very ham-fisted, this-is-what-we-do way.