ANIMAL rights activists are furious after a Swiss zoo put down a brown bear cub because it was being bullied by its “jealous” father.
The cub, known as Baby Bear 4, was born to father Misha and mother Masha at
at Dahlholzi Zoo in the Swiss capital of Bern.
When Misha showed aggressive behaviour towards it, zookeepers made a call to kill it instead of separating it and raising it alone.
The shocking act has angered member of Swiss Animal Protection, the country’s oldest and largest animal rights group, who slammed the decision, saying it was poor.
“It is not natural to keep the male bear with the offspring, and there was more than enough space to have kept him in a separate part of the cage,” a spokesman said.
So far, the zoo has argued that separating Misha or Masha could have had other consequences, and that killing the cub was the right thing to do.
Dahlholzi Zoo deputy director Jürg Hadorn said that after watching them for 12 weeks, it was clear Masha was neglecting her role as mother of Baby Bear 4.
“Together with the fact that the male bear Misha had started demonstrating the same aggressive behaviour as he did to cub number three, in order to protect cub number four from more stress and pain, we decided to act,” he said.
“As a result the baby bear was euthanised by a vet.
“It remains unclear now as then as to why our bears behaved in this way. After killing cub number three on April 2 there was an uneasy truce for 48 hours but since the weekend Misha again started to show the same aggression.
“Attempting to distract them and temporarily separating the older animals has only brought short-term easing of the situation. But it also resulted in Masha ignoring the cub even more.
“Misha and Masha are lovely hand-reared orphaned bears who came to us in 2009. They never had the chance to learn from other bears how to behave and their mothers were killed by poachers.
“We have tried when they were here to keep as much distance between them and humans as possible. Our priority is the two adult bears.
“Having young animals is a natural part of the life cycle of every animal and we wanted to ensure that Misha and Masha had the chance as well. But the loss of the young animals in a biological sense and also according to basic principles of good animal protection are less serious than the loss of an adult.
“The loss of cub number four has affected all of us here. Because Misha and Masha appeared to be clearly unable to fulfil their role as parents, Misha will be sterilised in the next few weeks.”
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