Animal protection activists blocked the entrance to the Nuremberg Zoo on Saturday. The action was directed against a planned killing of the zoo’s baboons. As a police spokeswoman said, 24 activists had sat down in front of the zoo’s main entrance that morning, and five had also chained themselves to a gate with massive iron chains. At the entrance, the activists attached a banner with the inscription “Only freedom is species-appropriate” and shouted slogans such as “You are not alone” over a megaphone.
The Animal Rebellion group acknowledged the action in a statement. Because the needs of animals were not heard in the debate, the organization’s activists gave the creatures a voice, the group said.
At the beginning of February, the Nuremberg Zoo announced that it wanted to kill individual animals from the group of Guinea baboons. This had become too big for the enclosure and the social structure was unfavorable. According to the zoo, it was not possible to give them to other owners. Release into the wild is also out of the question because there are no suitable areas in the regions of origin. There have now been several offers from institutions that would like to take over the animals. The park is currently examining this.
Since, according to the police, the demonstrators did not comply with the request to vacate the square, police officers broke up the meeting and carried the activists away. The police cut the iron chains with the help of the fire department. Some of the activists continued to demonstrate in a space assigned to them near the entrance.
