International


10/23/2007
 

Bird Murder

Flamingos Decapitated in Frankfurt Zoo

In a grisly murder case, merciless killers have slain four flamingos in Frankfurt Zoo. The unknown assassins struck during the night, decapitating three of the birds and strangling a fourth to death.

A Frankfurt Zoo flamingo in happier days.
Zoom
DPA

A Frankfurt Zoo flamingo in happier days.

A grisly murder case has shocked staff at Frankfurt Zoo. Keepers found the bodies of four murdered flamingos in their pen on Tuesday morning.

Three of the birds were decapitated while a fourth was strangled to death, police said Tuesday. The four birds were all over 30 years old.

"We cannot explain why someone would want to murder flamingos," zoo spokeswoman Caroline Liefke told the news agency Reuters. "It's a complete mystery." The assassins snuck into the zoo between 9 p.m. on Monday evening and 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the zoo said.

Authorities are investigating how the killers managed to get into the zoo after it had closed and break into the flamingo's enclosure.

Death is no stranger to Germany's zoos. Recent tragic incidents include the case of the Erfurt zookeepers who killed their charges and sold the meat, the Berlin Zoo panda who died of constipation, and the Chemnitz Zoo keeper who was slain by a leopard.

dgs/reuters/dpa

Article...

For reasons of data protection and privacy, your IP address will only be stored if you are a registered user of Facebook and you are currently logged in to the service. For more detailed information, please click on the "i" symbol.

Post to other social networks:

Keep track of the news

Stay informed with our free news services:

All news from SPIEGEL International
All news from Zeitgeist section

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH




European Partners

Global Partners

Facebook

Twitter

Follow SPIEGEL_English on Twitter now:






TOP



TOP