Seems that the reputation of the Director of Eugenics at the Zoo was in question:
But Bengt Holst, scientific director at the Danish zoo, defended Marius’s destruction, saying that giraffes had to be selected to ensure the best genes were passed down to ensure the animal’s long-term survival.
He said all zoos had been considered and there was no place for Marius - including at Yorkshire where, he said, any space should be reserved for a genetically more important giraffe. The campaign to save him, he said, had gone “much too far”.
