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556 0 Netherlands Dying Wish Giraffe This photo released Saturday March 22, 2014 by Stichting Ambulance Wens or Ambulance Wish Foundation shows a giraffe at Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam giving a lick to terminally ill Mario Eijs on Wednesday March 19, 2014 . The Stichting Ambulancewens "Ambulance Wish Foundation" offers transport for terminally ill patients who cannot walk to help fulfill a last wish, in Eijs' case to be taken to the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam where he worked doing odd jobs for 25 years. Eijs, who has a mental handicap, is dying of a brain tumor and has difficulty...

The 54-year-old mentally handicapped man named Mario had worked as a cleaner at the Rotterdam Zoo in the Netherlands for approximately 25 years. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, he wanted to say goodbye to the animals.

**SNIP** The second giraffe, coincidentally also named Marius, lives at the Danish Jyllands Park Zoo. To make room for a female giraffe it plans to acquire, the zoo plans to put down its 7-year-old male, balancing out genders in the facility. “We can't have two males and one female. Then there will be fights,” zoo keeper Janni Lojtved Poulsen told Danish news agency Ritzau. “If the breeding program coordinator decides that he should be put down, then that's what we'll do,” Poulsen said. **SNIP** "It is no secret that animals are killed when there is no longer space, or if...

COPENHAGEN — Copenhagen Zoo's scientific director and staff have received death threats because a healthy giraffe was killed to avoid inbreeding, the zoo said on Monday. But director Bengt Holst said it was the right decision, and he would be ready to do the same with another animal if needed. The death of Marius, an 18-month-old male shot on Sunday and then dissected in front of crowds at the zoo, has started a uproar among animal lovers in Denmark and abroad. “I got direct threats against the zoo, me and my family,” Holst said. A caller who telephoned in the...

Staff at a Danish zoo where a healthy giraffe was put down have received death threats as debate rages online over the killing, which took place despite a petition signed by thousands of animal lovers. Several staff members were targeted after the animal, named Marius, was shot Sunday, Copenhagen Zoo spokesman Tobias Stenbæk Bro told CNN on Monday. The Copenhagen Zoo said it "euthanized" Marius to avoid inbreeding. A veterinarian shot Marius with a rifle as he leaned down to munch on rye bread, a favorite snack. After an autopsy the giraffe was dismembered in front of an audience that...

See the Facebook collection of stories and reader comments. How dare an animal be slaughtered for its meat! How dare a zoo feed meat to a lion!

An online petition to save a healthy young giraffe from death has failed, despite thousands of signatures from animal lovers. Copenhagen Zoo said it euthanized the male, named Marius, on Sunday because of a duty to avoid inbreeding. After an autopsy, "Marius" was dismembered in front of a zoo audience that included children, and fed to the zoo's lions.

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel. Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago. UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman...

IMOLA, Italy, - A giraffe that escaped a circus in central Italy died after being tranquilized for recapture, officials said. The giraffe was loose in the town of Imola for several hours after it escaped Friday, Italy's ANSA news agency reported. Police cornered the more than 2,000-pound animal in a fenced parking lot of a grocery store and shot it with two tranquilizers. The giraffe died from cardiac arrest shortly after being returned to the Rinaldo Orfei Circus.

A giraffe at the Peoria Zoo died today after he became caught between forks of a tree and panicked. The giraffe, Savannah, was feeding on leaves from trees in a nearby enclosure when his head became caught in the forks between two trunks of the tree. The animal panicked and flipped himself over, a statement from the zoo said. Staff members began emergency procedures to free the animal. The giraffe was rescued but lifesaving measures were unsuccessful. The cause of death will be determined after an exam. The Africa! exhibit was immediately closed during the emergency response. Savannah and Taji...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Albuquerque city officials are blaming miscommunication for the remains of a Rio Grande Zoo giraffe being placed in a trash bin. A memo Friday from city officials to Mayor Richard Berry said it was not an act of insubordination or disrespect but appears to be the result of unfortunate miscommunication between the zoo manager and an employee.

A chance encounter in Israel between vets and a giraffe has led to a rabbinical ruling that the African animal is kosher. According to a report in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, vets were asked to treat an adult, female giraffe at Israel's largest zoo, the Safari Park in Ramat Gan. Giraffe meat and milk has been ruled acceptable for observant Jews The team, led by Professor Zohar Amar, took a routine sample of milk and found that it clotted in the way required by Jewish law for kosher certification. They submitted more milk for verification by the rabbinical authorities and...

Not one but 'six giraffe species' Anna-Marie Lever Science and nature reporter, BBC News Giraffe populations have dropped by 30% over the past decade The world's tallest animal, the giraffe, may actually be several species, a study has found. A report in BMC Biology uses genetic evidence to show that there may be at least six species of giraffe in Africa. Currently giraffes are considered to represent a single species classified into multiple subspecies. The study shows geographic variation in hair coat colour is evident across the giraffe's range in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting reproductive isolation. "Using molecular techniques we found...

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Police stopped villagers from slaughtering and eating a giraffe that strayed into the outskirts of the capital amid chronic food shortages caused by an economic crisis, the official media reported Saturday. The adult giraffe was believed to have wandered from nearby farmland. Wildlife authorities took the giraffe away after police kept a crowd from killing it "for the pot," the state Herald reported. Zimbabwe is suffering shortages of meat and basic foods in an economic meltdown that has left it with the world's highest official inflation—nearly 7,000 percent. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000...

VILNIUS, Lithuania - Climbing into a giraffe's cage at the local zoo seemed a good idea after a few drinks. But the prank went wrong when the 1.3-ton animal flew into a rage and attacked the three student trespassers at a zoo in Lithuania on Monday night. Ruta Greiciute, a 22-year-old student at Kaunas Technology University, was hospitalized with a broken collar bone and nose after the 9-year-old male giraffe, named Solut, attacked her. The other students survived the incident unscathed.

"The idea that the giraffe got its long neck due to food shortages in the lower reaches of trees seems almost self-evident. The giraffe is taller than all other mammals, can feed where no others can, and therefore has a distinct advantage. It seems compelling to say that the long neck and legs developed in relation to this advantage. Why else would the giraffe be so tall? You find this view presented in children's books, in web descriptions of the giraffe, and in textbooks." "But just because this explanation is widespread does not mean it is true. In fact, this...

<p>MOSCOW (AP) --  Moscow's zoo got some help with its giraffe matchmaking Tuesday with the arrival of a baby giraffe from Florida.</p> <p>The 81/2-foot-tall female, named Lyuba, landed in the Russian capital Tuesday and got a police escort to her new lodgings. Moscow zoo officials hope the 5-month-old will eventually mate with the city's lone male giraffe, 7-year-old Samson.</p>

It's a Legal Jungle Out There Giraffe's death raises questions of animal privacy rights in a dog-eat-dog world. By ROY RIVENBURG TIMES STAFF WRITER Animals aren't usually known as sticklers for privacy. They don't wear clothes, they lick themselves in public and, if an amorous dog decides to have an intimate moment with your aunt's leg, it rarely bothers to rent out a honeymoon suite at the Ritz-Carlton. But things are changing. Thanks to a mysterious death in Washington, animals could soon be entitled to the same privacy rights as humans. The trouble started when a gassy, arthritic giraffe named...