No room for mercy: German zoo ignores animal lovers’ plea, kills 12 baboons citing lack of space

The Tiergarten Nürnberg Zoo first announced plans to kill baboons it didn’t have space for in February 2024. It had said that it examined offers to take in some of the animals but was unable to make any of them work.

The plans drew criticism from animal rights groups. They also drew protests at the zoo, which said on Monday that it would have to start preparing to kill baboons. On Tuesday morning, it announced that it was closing for the day for unspecified “operational reasons”.

On Tuesday afternoon, police said several activists forced their way into the grounds, a few of them glueing themselves to the ground before being detained.

Shortly afterwards, the zoo said it had killed 12 baboons, German news agency dpa reported. Further details weren’t immediately available. Animal rights groups said they planned to file a criminal complaint.

The zoo’s population of Guinea baboons had grown to 43 and was too big for a house built in the late 2000s for 25 animals plus their young, leading to more conflicts among the animals.

The zoo has said it did take steps in the past to address the issue, with 16 baboons moving to zoos in Paris and China since 2011. But those zoos, and another in Spain to which baboons were previously sent, had reached their own capacity. An attempt at contraception was abandoned several years ago after failing to produce the desired results.

Animals are regularly euthanised in European zoos for a variety of reasons. Some past cases have caused an outcry; for example, one in 2014 in which Copenhagen Zoo killed a healthy 2-year-old giraffe, butchered its carcass in front of a crowd that included children and then fed it to lions.