Beloved N.M. Giraffe Tossed in Dumpster

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

After Zoo Staff Euthanized Giraffe, Worker Put Dismembered Carcass in Trash Bin instead of Designated Landfill

(CBS) The way the Rio Grande Zoo disposed of the body of a beloved giraffe broke the law and outraged the mayor of Albuquerque, reports CBS affiliate KRQE.

A zoo staff member tossed the dismembered body of Kashka, a giraffe who was euthanized last week after a debilitating leg injury, into a dumpster on zoo property.

A garbage truck eventually took the dumpster containing the deceased giraffe to a local landfill.

Zoo animals are sent to the landfill when they die, but Albuquerque's Cultural Services Director Betty Rivera said the way Kashka was handled is shocking.

Rivera oversees Albuquerque's Rio Grande Zoo.

"It is totally inappropriate and something that should outrage everyone," Rivera said.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/23/national/main6325864.shtml?tag=stack

[TwilightGardener]

1. Poor giraffe! My favorite zoo animal.

:cry:

[dembotoz]

8. a favorite childhood memory

was maybe 4 5 years old.
My father took me to the old zoo where he knew one of the people who worked there.
I got to feed a giraffe.
was on my dads shoulders holding out some leaved and the aimal came over and ate them out of my hand.

way
way
cool

[apex3350]

25. saskatoon

[apex3350]

23. alberta

[joeybee12]

2. These animals need to be treated with some dignity...n/t

[apex3350]

26. tajikistan

[AlphaCentauri]

3. That Giraffe skin would make some nice boots

:sarcasm:

[Kali]

11. boots too small for spot effect to show well - seat covers!

:hide:

[apex3350]

27. wales

[apex3350]

24. berlin

[uppityperson]

4. Illegal to leave them in a dumpster (quote here...)

"Dead animals can be taken to the landfill, but it is against city laws to leave them in a trash can or dumpster for a garbage truck to collect, according to an Albuquerque city ordinance. "

[SteveM]

5. A certain "animal-rights" group has no problem with dumpsters...

http://www.nokillnow.com/petatimeline.htm

[lbrtbell]

14. Well, how's that for irony

Sheesh! :cry:

[apex3350]

30. north korea

[hellsbeagle]

21. You may want to look into who is running

the website PETA Kills......you will feel used.

[apex3350]

31. malaysia

[apex3350]

29. denmark

[apex3350]

28. bangladesh

[tom_paine]

6. It stopped making money for The Corporation. It's fate a metaphor for our Empire, the bottom 80% of

us, anyway.

[apex3350]

32. ukraine

[elocs]

7. Some 35 years ago that is the way that things were handled at my city's small zoo.

At that time the "zookeeper" got the job simply because he knew something about farm animals. I worked there from 1975-80 and the man who was my boss started 6 months before I did. I heard that when he first started he saw a big box behind one of the zoo buildings and asked what it was. He was told that is where they put the animals. He noted that the box only had one hole in it. He was told that is where the hose was placed that went to the exhaust pipe on the truck.

That box then was immediately tossed into the garbage. Animals then received proper vet care and were euthanized humanely and their bodies were disposed of with respect.

Just because somebody works at a zoo or is even the head of a zoo does not mean they know what they are doing or should even be allowed to work with animals at all.

[apex3350]

33. new guinea

[pitohui]

9. if it's against the law, it's against the law but once i'm dead what matters?

as long as the animal was humanely euthanized to be honest it's what i would want for myself

when i go i want to go fast and humanely and i don't want what financial resources i leave behind, assuming there are any, to go to some funeral corporation to put me in the ground when they could instead go to my survivors to have a better life

sometimes i think we're sentimental abt really stupid stuff

once you're dead, the body is just a shell

the giraffe is not looking down from heaven spewing curses on us because she ended in a dumpster

[apex3350]

34. brazil

[Kali]

10. why didn't they feed it to the lions or something?

:wtf:

[pitohui]

12. i did wonder abt that, since it died from an injury rather than illness

if they had to saw it up anyway to fit in dumpster, i wonder why they didn't saw it up anyway as raw meat for the carnivores, maybe the type of euthanasia gas used prohibits this

there's an anesthetic given to cattle, that if the cattle dies anyway, it also kills the vulture, this has already wiped out 3 species of vultures in india in only a few years (while not technically complete extinct the three populations have only token birds left and almost certainly can't recover at this point, so they're functionally extinct)

could be something like that??? they think the euthanasia gas might harm the predators?

[Kali]

15. maybe -

it was probably an injectable sedative rather than a gas, not sure how toxic that would be for predators to ingest

stun gun would have been better for the recycling in the case of an injury

[apex3350]

37. macau

[apex3350]

36. taiwan

[XemaSab]

13. Seriously

Or hell, have a fundraising dinner. :popcorn:

[apex3350]

38. normandy

[apex3350]

35. china

[0rganism]

16. so it must go *straight* to the landfill, without the dumpster layover?

What a huge difference that makes. How totally outrageous! :sarcasm:

Frankly, it would have been more "dignified" to feed the animal to lions -- assuming it wasn't thoroughly contaminated by the "euthanizing" process.

[kurtzapril4]

18. Animals that are euthanised

by means of a lethal injection cannot be used as food for other animals. The meat may cause serious injury to the animals that ate it. It's called "secondary poisoning."

Just like if someone puts down rat poison, the rat eats it, goes off somewhere to die(painfully, I might add), and another animal eats the carcass, that animal is going to get very ill and/or die also.

As far as the giraffe's carcass goes, it should have been disposed of legally, and with some dignity, at least. Its hide would have made a dandy love seat!

[apex3350]

40. zambia

[apex3350]

39. uganda

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Similar story in Seattle from a few years ago.

They had an elephant that they tried to take to the usual incinerator for disposal but for some reason they refused that time, and it ended up in a landfill after several miscues. There was a scandalous newspaper article about it trying to blame the zoo, but if you looked at it fairly the zoo tried to do everything correctly and ended up getting screwed.

Don't know if that's the case here, but I'm not going to jump to conclusions.

[tammywammy]

19. I would have thought they'd be cremated. n/t

[apex3350]

41. edmonton

[veganred]

20. people suck

[apex3350]

42. zimbabwe

[apex3350]

22. appalling