Lion cubs euthanized, baboons slaughtered: in zoos, the taboo of killing healthy animals

In this French zoo, lion cubs are sometimes killed. Newborn ones, with their round ears and stubbornly closed eyes. In theory, the park manager knows this: before shooting them, he should let the lioness raise them for two years, while she hones her maternal instinct. But if he waits, his hand ends up shaking. "I'm not capable of euthanizing an animal I've raised," he explains to Libération . So, "extremely occasionally," about once a year, he agrees to lethal injections. Only on the youngest, born a few hours earlier. This way, it's bearable.

In Europe, this story is all too commonplace. Three tiger cubs, abandoned by their mother, were killed in early August in Leipzig. At the end of July, twelve baboons were slaughtered at the Nuremberg Zoo in Germany due to lack of space. Two years earlier, a Scottish zoo euthanized four