Understandably there was outrage this week when a Copenhagen zoo killed a healthy two-year-old "surplus" giraffe, cut it up and fed it to the lions.
That it was done in front of school children, and that the redundant giraffe had big gentle eyes and a name, Marius, starts to make it unpalatable.
Marius was part of a breeding program at the zoo, but his genes weren't needed. The zoo was concerned about too much inbreeding. The giraffe had to go.
The tiny mew that came from somewhere inside Melody Isvik’s Jayco tent trailer didn’t make sense to her partner, Jerry Deleeuws.
They didn’t have a cat at their Rose Hill ranch, largely because of the coyotes and foxes in the area.
They had closed up the trailer in Nanaimo three days before, on the Friday leading up to the October Thanksgiving weekend. It was now Monday and they had reopened the trailer to air it out before winter.
Usually when Barb Zibrik goes to feed any of the feral cat colonies in Kamloops, the felines and any of their offspring disappear into a myriad of hiding places.
But last fall, the head of the Kamloops and District Humane Society was surprised when one black kitten stayed put on a chair as she neared the food and water dishes at one feeding spot she has set up on a property with the homeowner’s permission.
When she got close enough, she could see why the 12-week-old kitten wasn't taking off into the dark of the fall night like the others.