Zoo

Zoo Zürich kills ten geladas

Zoo Zürich killed ten healthy geladas (bleeding-heart baboons) last week. The official justification: The population had grown to 48 animals, and no free spaces could be found in other zoos across Europe. The international wildlife conservation organization Pro Wildlife exercises sharp criticism and the case raises fundamental questions about the treatment of wildlife in human care.

Editorial Wild beim Wild — 10 March 2026

Zoo Zürich killed ten healthy geladas (bleeding-heart baboons) last week. The official justification: The population had grown to 48 animals, and no free spaces could be found in other zoos across Europe. The international wildlife conservation organization Pro Wildlife exercises sharp criticism, and the case raises fundamental questions about the treatment of wildlife in human care.

«What we experienced in Nürnberg is now repeating itself in Zürich», says Laura Zodrow of Pro Wildlife. «Healthy animals must die because zoos continue breeding without a concept of where to place the animals. This has nothing to do with species conservation.»

What Swiss law says

Unlike in Germany, Austria or Luxembourg, Swiss animal welfare law (TSchG) does not recognizeno explicit prohibition on killing healthy animals without reasonable cause. Only cruel and malicious killing is punishable, not the professional killing of healthy animals, as long as it is painless. Zoo Zurich is thus acting formally legally, but Swiss law leaves a gaping protection gap.

The Foundation for Animals in the Law (TIR) criticizes precisely this gap: Killing without factual justification contradicts the protection of animal dignity, which is explicitly anchored in the Animal Welfare Act, because life is the foundation of all dignity. The Animal Welfare Act protects dignity and welfare of animals, but does not explicitly name life itself as a purpose of protection, a gap that urgently needs to be closed.

Not an isolated case, but a systemic problem

Pro Wildlife had already criticized the shooting of Guinea baboons at Nuremberg Zoo and filed criminal charges. The parallels are striking: social primates with complex needs, overcrowded enclosures without escape possibilities, no sustainable breeding concept and no realistic reintroduction programs.

'This is not individual failure, but a systematic problem in the zoo industry,' explains Zodrow. The argument of species conservation only applies if concrete reintroduction programs exist, which is not the case with geladas.

The parallel to hobby hunting

The Zurich case reveals a logic that wildbeimwild.com knows all too well from the hunting debate: Animals are deliberately bred and then equally deliberately killed when they become 'surplus'. Both hobby hunting and zoo 'population management' justify the killing of healthy animals with supposedly factual necessities: 'game management', 'population regulation', 'species management'. Behind this lies the same fundamental problem: Humans instrumentalize wild animals and claim the right to decide over their lives.

While recreational hunters claim that without them wildlife populations would 'explode', zoos claim that without killing, enclosure populations would be 'destabilized'. In both cases, the problem was first created by human intervention, through excessive management or uncontrolled breeding. Real protection looks different: It begins with leaving wild animals their place in nature, instead of 'managing' them in captivity.

What is now demanded

The demands are: The Animal Welfare Act must anchor life as an explicit purpose of protection, analogous to the German regulation. Zoos may only continue breeding once accommodation for all offspring is secured. And there needs to be public accountability for 'population management' decisions in Swiss zoos.

Sources: Pro Wildlife (press release, March 10, 2026), Animals in the Law, tierwelt.ch

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