A zoo in the German city of Nurember g said it killed 12 baboons on Tuesday despite protests, capping a saga rooted in concerns that the zoo had too little space to house a growing group of the animals.

The Tiergarten Nürnberg Zoo in Southern Germany confirmed that it killed 12 healthy Guinea baboons due to overcrowding issues, prompting backlash from animals rights groups who claimed that they violated animal protection laws by doing so.

A German zoo has killed a dozen healthy Guinea baboons and fed them to predators. Nuremberg Zoo claimed that it had to kill the captive monkeys as a last resort to address an “increase in conflict” caused by overcrowding.