Officials at a zoo in Switzerland have created a firestorm of criticism after making the decision to kill a bear cub that had been neglected by its mother.
On top of that, the brown
bear cub will be stuffed and put on display to show that “nature can be cruel,” CNN reported.
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The cub, known as Cub 4, was reported to healthy when he was euthanized at Dahlholzli Zoo in April. However, he was being neglected by his mother and “roughed up” by his father after the older male killed one of Cub 4’s siblings.
Zoo officials said in a statement that the decision was made not to interfere with the bears’ “natural” behavior.
Animal rights groups, however, argued that Cub 4’s parents were hand-raised and that the cubs could have been raised in a similar way.
Sara Wehrli, head of the Wild Animal Department of Swiss Animal Protection,
told the Berner Zeitung newspaper in April that the Dahlholzli Zoo had acted "irresponsibly" in its care of the bears.
"Bears are loners and need room, and in zoos, there are already too many brown bears," she said. "Letting the two get pregnant was wrong. You can't leave wild animals in captivity to 'nature.' Whoever keeps them must take responsibility for them."
An online petition has gathered nearly 87,000 signatures telling the Dahlholzli Zoo to “stop killing healthy baby animals.” A May 16 post that appears to be from the zoo states: “Thank you for your message. We understand your concern. We assure you, that we sincerely evaluated in advance the whole situation very carefully with expert biologists.”
Twitter users were horrified by the news.
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