This Zoo Says They’ll Feed Your Unwanted Pets To Their Resident Predators
The Aalborg Zoo in Aalborg, Denmark, recently went viral with a social media post urging people to donate unwanted pets, which would then be fed to the zoo’s resident predators.
You can read the message on Facebook here, but since I don’t speak Danish, I asked Google Translate to help me understand the message they posted on social media, and here’s what I got back:
Chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs form an important part of the diet of our predators, especially the European lynx, which needs whole prey that resembles what it would naturally hunt in the wild.
In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the animals’ natural food chain, for the sake of both animal welfare and professional integrity.
If you have an animal that needs to be removed for various reasons, you are welcome to donate it to us. The animals are gently euthanized by trained staff and then used as food. In this way, nothing goes to waste, and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition, and well-being of our predators.
They included a link to their website regarding further guidelines for donating (which is available in English), and they indicated there that you can even donate any horses you no longer want to care for.
The zoo will apparently euthanize and then slaughter your horse to be fed to their animals, and give you a tax deduction for your donated equine.
As for smaller animals such as guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens, the zoo said on their website that they accept them as drop-offs between 10 am and 1 pm, but you can’t bring more than four with you at a time.
A lot of people were upset about the zoo’s message, which quickly went viral. The comments on Aalborg Zoo’s Facebook post were ultimately closed due to the backlash they received.
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What do you think about the zoo asking people to donate their unwanted pets to be turned into food? Are you offended by this, or do you think it’s all part of the circle of life?
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