Death of a Giraffe

Yesterday I cleaned my patio - shoveled the accumulated snow off the concrete and out into the yard, swept up the bird seed and scattered that, swept up and bagged a few leaves and small bits of trash that had been blown into the area.  Then I refilled the bird seed basin, put out nuts for the squirrels, and tossed broken baugette rounds out for the ravens, crows, and starlings.  We enjoyed sunshine all morning, and into mid-afternoon, then clouds started piling up.  The weather guy last night said that Boulder might get .2 inches of snow over the next 24 hours, but he thought it would be "a dusting, or less."  So I was surprised to get up this morning and find that all the squirrels trails in the snow were filled in, and that there was more than a half-inch of snow on the patio.  It's 19 degrees outside, snow pellets called grauple are falling, and there is also an ice fog - quite different from the 52 degrees we had yesterday afternoon!
  Oh, well...  this is normal in Boulder.  My kits have been out for over an hour - bringing in lots of mud on their feet.  Lovey has been in and out frequently, and left a multitude of tracks.  Nedi was in hope of capturing a bird, but (luckily) that didn't happen.  He stayed out for the longest time, and gave me a heart-broken look when I closed the door after he came back inside.
  Once again, I have the NBC Sports network on and am watching the Winter Olympics.  I was really hoping that Bode Miller would equal his training run in the downhill competition, and bring home gold for his kids.  But that wasn't to be...
  I am, once again, upset by a happening in the animal world.  The Copenhagen zoo put down (killed) a perfectly healthy 2- year-old male giraffe, and fed his remains to their lions.  I am not upset about them feeding the remains to the lion - I am upset that they euthanized the giraffe.  The zoo's explanation was that this young male would cause too much close in-breeding in their stock.  My question is, why not offer the young male to other zoos around the world, so as to widen their genetic pool?  Why kill a healthy, athletic, well bred 2-year-old?  Could not a sale, switch, or trade have been agreed upon?  The people of Copenhagen and Denmark signed a petition begging that the giraffe not be killed.  It was ignored.  I'd like to know why.  Cost? Time? Facilities? Why?