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Denmark zoo asks people to donate their small pets as food for captive predators – pets will be “gently euthanized” by trained staff
https://apnews.com/article/denmark-zoo-pet-donations-food-predators-6e124050c269331600ec93b266de31ff
To be clear... They're thinking about rabbits, guinea pigs, and chickens.
These are animals that zoos often raise and do indeed feed the extras of to their predators. Which is why this is a weird ask in my opinion. At the zoo that I volunteered at as a teenager, they were always hatching chicks for the petting zoo and while they kept a number of adult chickens around, those chicks were fed to everything from tiny screech owls to the gators. We fed them dead because it's the way that you don't your predators, but if you're trying to create or enrichment, raise your own chickens, it's sustainable...
It's very strange to ask people to give their pets to be hunted... To the point that this feels like it almost has to be a joke. How do you verify that the animals you're feeding to your predators are healthy?
The donated animals are checked by a vet beforehand to ensure they don't pose a health risk to the zoo animals.
They are also euthanised before feeding, so no live hunting going on.
They don't ask for the donations out of necessity, but instead as an alternative option for people with animals they can't take care of. By donating them to the zoo the animals will contribute to the natural cycle of life rather than going to waste.
The line about mimicking the natural food chain is why I thought they were going for live feeding but I did forget they said they'd euthanize while writing my post. Thanks for the reminder.
The framing of the AP article and headline is more "asking to donate" than "we'll take them if you can't care for them.". But these are still animals that zoos in my experience raise themselves. And I think the ask/offer is weird
I’m sure they will continue raising their own too, and ordering from normal suppliers as well.
Sure. But my point is it's a weird ask/offer - especially framed as small pets vs small livestock. Many people don't want to euthanize their pets if they have to re-home them. People tend to have an aversion to that in fact. If they're raising guinea pigs as more livestock/meat animals, then sure, it probably doesn't matter.
And maybe this is something lost in translation. They're framing this as trying to feed their animals more in a natural food chain manner - are they not already? Maybe European or Danish zoos run differently than I'm used to.
I think there's a way to do this, but the language used in the article is not how I'd approach the general public with this offer.
In contrast for example, the zoo I was at did accept roadkill for their wolves and had at one point a whole frozen deer standing up in their freezer (we named her Stiffy). They absolutely put her in the exhibit for enrichment (but not during visitor hours). But they didn't ask for people who couldn't afford their horses to re-home their horse for euthanasia because the general public wouldn't love that. Roadkill donations were a reasonable ask, pets... Don't feel the same.
I was thinking the same thing. My only thought is that such a request would play differently than in North America where pet's are extensions of the family.
But who knows -- it's a pretty cold ask nonetheless
There's a stereotype about Scandinavians being cold and emotionless. This kind of thing... doesn't exactly help that stereotype.
I mean logically, yeah, it makes sense. If you euthanize a pet, who cares what happens to the corpse. On an emotional level though, the image of a little girl's beloved bunny having to be euthanized and then being torn to shreds by a hyenia because her family moved to a smaller apartment is just... really offputting.
It seems like any "food" you'd gain from an ask like this would be strongly outweighed by the negative perception you got from putting it out there, at least it would be in the US.
:/ I imagined the opposite direction: failed bunny mill having to get rid of unwanted stock, options being crude killing methods or just running from the problem letting bunnies die from starvation and neglect; pet store going out of business; puppy mill having a bad year; a lonely, aging, three legged guinea pig who's been at the shelter for years.
See if it was all business/livestock oriented it'd make more sense (but also like crack down on the mills if it's an issue there). That just doesn't seem to be the intent.
Yeah, I'm curious about how people feel about this. Makes sense to me, but unconventional for sure
Someone close to me is a cat and dog vet in a smallish town in Switzerland. She says that in term of willingness to provide care, there a big difference between city and country side (city dweller are more prone to pay for care and go further than people in the countryside). Irrespective of that, there's also a difference between people taking pets as toys for the kids, and people taking pets as substitution children (you can observe that with how they name their pets : common name are the former while sophisticated name are the latter).
I mean those are small livestock animals that are kind of cross-categorized with pets so it depends on the person. But the framing is weird. Idk it just bugs me
My thinking is that maybe some illness or contamination hit thier feeding stock and they require anything they can get until they can get back to stable supply.
I live near a conservation area and plenty of predator birds that they are trying to preserve in the wild. So they maintain a good rabbit and mouse population. Constant calls to not use poisons or to report any dead animals in case there's some illness going around. Good news is we don't have a lot of the regular pests. Bad news, we get weird, expensive, carnivorous pests.
Does not seem like a strange ask to me.
I fostered for two cat rescues, and both times, I was aware that there were many people asking to have their small animals taken away. The sad fact is that almost no one wants bunnies, guinea pigs and hamsters.
The zoo in the article is probably aware that eventually people give up on trying to re-home the unwanted small critters, and turn to obviously cruel solutions, or releasing them into a park. Gentle euthanasia, when paired with banning pet stores, is a good way of preventing overpopulation of abandoned pets in parks.
Apparently, the Netherlands also banned hundreds of species of pets last year , which might mean there are a lot of pet animal breeders needing gentle euthanasia. I mean for their poor innocent animals.
It looks like they're banning exotic mammals, which wouldn't apply to rabbits and chickens but might to guinea pigs if they're particular. I didn't go through the list.
The implication in the article that they're not currently feeding their animals this more natural food chain diet that they're trying for. I think there's a way to offer it that isn't weird, but that this is a weird "ask" as it's framed in the article.
Our local rescue does adopt out small mammals so I don't know if there's a difference in demand.
Note: I might be biased, because this is my local zoo and I just went there this weekend with my kid. I've been to the zoo probably around 20 times through the years.
I think this thread is a bit weird to read through. Did anyone take the time to read the page on the zoo website? They are not asking for dogs or cats, but horses, chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs. They will even pay you for the horse meat (through a tax deduction).
Here's the page from the zoo's website (in English): https://aalborgzoo.dk/en/zoo-parade/donation-of-animals-for-feed/
Zoo animals need to eat, and Denmark is an agricultural country, especially in the region where the zoo is located (Northern Jutland). Many people here have horses or other farm animals (like chickens and sometimes rabbits).
The zoo can either buy this meat through middle-men (meaning higher prices), raise the meat themselves (which requires a lot of space and ressources) or ask for donations (either money or healthy animals to feed the zoo animals).
Many people offer monetary donations to the zoo - why not donate an animal if you have one that is suitable and it needs to be euthanized either way?
Reading the zoo's financial report, around 10% of their expenes are for "raw materials and helping materials" so it's a big expense.
Why not ask for donations that you know are readily available and that people might be willing to donate?
I pointed out the types of animals they were asking about in the linked article which seemed focused on the small animals not the horses.
They framed it as feeding them more naturally which it really isn't unless they're not feeding their animals meat now? I assume they are. Raising horses obviously takes a lot of space and money and I discussed later how the zoo I was familiar with did take large prey animal road kill donations for their large predators.
But guinea pigs are an exhibit at that zoo, one that provides a lot of snacks, with the chicks providing an incubator exhibit and being part of the petting zoo if they don't get culled for food, and the vast majority do. (They only had a few rabbits, they weren't predator food but animals volunteers would hold for visitors to touch like the baby chicks or owls or boas, etc. )
It's the asking for small pets - not livestock - and the framing of the article/Facebook post that seems weird. If it's really more of targeted at farms. My point has been that the tone and framing is off and asking for your pets with a predator's fangs in the photo. A "if you have a healthy animal you need to give away, let us kill it and feed it to the circle of life" post is just going to have, I suspect, very few takers. The website, which wasn't linked so no, I didn't go look up, focusing on horses makes sense with other animals mentioned as an afterthought there.
There's saving a buck and then there's asking for Harold the kids' guinea pig to be a snack. Asking for livestock would make much more sense. I've tried to be clear that this is my angle, I thought the way it was asked was so odd as to be potentially a joke. It could even be a translation issue on that Facebook post, I don't know, but even as their website doesn't focus on small animals donations but large ones that's what makes sense to me rather than the pet thing.
I'm just tired of news outlets spinning stories that provoke negative responses. The Facebook post is nothing worth writing about, especially not for AP to write about from a country far away from here. Their agenda is only one thing: sparking anger that generates views.
I took a look at the Facebook post: They are not asking for "donations." It's just a gentle reminder that you can do this and are welcome to do so if you are in the (albeit rather unique) position where it would be relevant for you to do so. It's not something new.
To me, it looks more like a "we need to post something on facebook today" rather than a plead.
They updated the post saying that "after international interest" they've chosen to lock the comments on the post because people started talking shit.
Why do people talk shit? Because AP wrote about it like they wanted to kill "Harold the kids' guinea pig" and feed it to the lions. They don't, but they do want their animals fed.
It's nothing against you, but your arguments are for a view that does not exist in this context.
I understand your perspective, I'm maintaining the messaging on their part feels weird. Even with the AP making a deal about it. It's not the sort of thing I'd expect a social media manager to post in that manner. Asking for pets instead of small livestock - unless there's a translation issue with that word - is what flags that for me.
I'm not opposed to feeding predators or euthanizing animals that need it. My opinion comes from spending time volunteering at my local zoo. Pepper talking shit on their post sucks, and that's literally every public post on facebook anymore. I'm sure they weren't expecting an international article written about them. I'm not sure what your last sentence means, but I think their messaging was a miss. Maybe not in Denmark, I can only share my thoughts in my own context, but it feels like a miss.
I can see how it might be due to a translation issue. The post says “husdyr” which is “domesticated animals” - not pets. Pets would be “kæledyr”, but I’m not sure all translation tools will know the difference. Or even people, if you asked them. “Husdyr” literally means “house animals”, but the meaning is not animals you would have in your house, quite the opposite actually.
That does change my view significantly! If that isn't a word that would be used to describe your pet rabbit, but instead to describe small livestock/ farm animals or similar, then that makes sense to me as a post.
My childhood zoo doesn't solicit animal donations like this, their food donation requests are more enrichment items, their roadkill deal is with the county, not with random citizens. I'm not sure if I would consider it worth the vet time to do this on a one-off small animal donation versus a large animal like a horse, but I'm going to assume that the zoo has done the math.
I do appreciate the clearing up of the translation stuff which really changes my whole opinion about the messaging. Everything I could see was showing pet except the zoo's actual website which doesn't use a term at all and just mentions the animals
I’m glad one opinion has changed. Thank you.
I hate to see my lovely zoo getting rained on like this, for no real reason.