Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, on Wednesday, told his Instagram followers that he is ready to take in a giraffe facing death in Denmark ‘on humanitarian grounds.’ He offered to take in a second Marius after reports emerged that it has been threatened with the same fate as his namesake before.
Only days after the euthanasia of a healthy young giraffe named Marius at Copenhagen zoo sparked controversy around the world, a second Danish zoo announced that it was considering a similar fate for another giraffe, also named Marius.
To sentence one giraffe to death may be regarded as a misfortune; to sentence two would be a catastrophe, according to Ramzan Kadyrov.
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Mr. Kadyrov, who has been implicated in torture and human rights abuses, is a known animal admirer and has a huge personal zoo.
He frequently posts pictures of himself on Instagram with exotic animals, and made his offer of shelter for the second Danish giraffe on the social network.
“I read the information about the fact that in Denmark they are going to end the life of another giraffe,” wrote Mr. Kadyrov beneath photographs of lions eating the first Marius, which the Chechen leader said was killed for “invented” reasons.
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The first Marius was considered useless for breeding because his genes were too common. The prospect of his death prompted an international petition that garnered more than 27,000 signatures, and controversy continued after he was killed and dissected in front of a large crowd and then fed to lions.
A new petition to save the second Marius currently has 3,500 signatures.