After a Danish zoo posted a reminder of its long-running programme allowing people to donate their healthy, small pets to be “gently euthanised” and fed to predators, reaction poured in from across the globe.
But beyond the battleground playing out on social media – where some protested against the idea of using pets as prey and others praised the zoo’s efforts to drum up a practical food supply – some were swift to point out that the zoo was simply laying bare the reality of keeping carnivores in captivity.
“If you accept the fact that you have carnivores in human care, either as a pet or as a zoo, you will agree to the fact that you feed them animal matter. Basically there is no other choice,” said Marcus Clauss, the co-director of the Clinic for Zoo Animals, Exotic Pets and Wildlife at the University of Zurich, pointing to vegan dog food as one of the few exceptions to this. “And then the logical next step is the question, where do you source that animal product from?”
As the zoo’s plea made headlines around the world, Aalborg zoo closed comments on its post, citing “hateful and malicious rhetoric”. The zoo said it was simply aiming to mimic the natural food chain by urging those with chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs that need to be put down to instead hand them over to the zoo. “That way, nothing goes to waste – and we ensure the natural behaviour, nutrition and wellbeing of our predators.”
Few would question the alternative, even though it came with the risk that zoo animals could end up being fed meat from animals raised in relatively poor conditions, said Clauss. “As long as it’s beef from the slaughterhouse, nobody sees it and nobody needs to think about it,” he said. “As soon as it’s an animal that is being killed at the zoo, it’s in everybody’s face.”
Some of the backlash was likely down to the wording of the appeal, said Dan Ashe of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which counts more than 200 accredited facilities spanning from the US to the UAE. “I think the thing that people maybe see as potentially shocking is the use of the word pet,” he said.
He chalked it up to cultural differences. “Professionally, I would not expect anything like that to happen at one of our accredited zoos, certainly not here in the US. But our accreditation policies wouldn’t necessarily prohibit it.”
The plea, however, spoke to a common understanding among zoos around the world: the importance, both nutritionally and behaviourally, of mimicking nature by feeding carnivores the entire carcass of animals. “Carcass-feeding is a regular feature of what our members do when they are available, some of our members accept donations of road-killed deer or animals,” said Ashe.
Some zoos had actively sought to spotlight this, he said, citing a recent event at Denver zoo where the public was invited – and warned appropriately beforehand – to watch as lions were fed pig carcasses. “The lions seemed to benefit, and certainly the guests who chose to watch it – it was packed,” he said.
Others, however, found little redeeming in the Danish appeal. “To me this was so far beyond the pale,” said Clifford Warwick, a UK-based consultant biologist and medical scientist. “The entire thing is bizarre and wrong.”
As the zoo did not specify how the donated pets would be euthanised, Warwick worried it would be impossible to do so in a way that was both humane and ensured that the animals remained safe to be eaten by predators such as the European lynx.
“And there’s no validity to their claim of needing to give animals a natural diet this way,” he said. “Lynx don’t eat guinea pigs. Where do they get guinea pigs from? Lynx would eat almost any small mammal, sure, but they can’t turn around and say that’s a natural behaviour.”
Aalborg zoo did not reply to a request for an interview.
At a time when animal shelters around the world are grappling with overcrowding, Warwick also bristled at what he saw as the wider implications of the zoo’s message. “It further devalues the lives of pets … It’s a horrendous devaluation of animal life,” he said. “Are you really happy saying: ‘OK, well Rex or Bruno, the time has come, there’s a hungry lion at the local zoo. Bye, off you go.’”
The wide range of reactions hints at the many factors that play into the broader question of how to keep carnivores fed at zoos, said Alessandro Di Marzio, the science lead at Riga zoo.
“Zoos are spread across a wide range of areas, so you’ll find places where certain techniques are considered acceptable and more or less normal for society, while in other areas they’re not,” he said, with local laws, economic resources and culture also helping to shape these tactics. “It depends on all these circumstances.”
The resulting clash of cultures has at times been glaring; earlier this year, Germany’s Nuremberg zoo sparked protests after it confirmed it had killed six of its 12 Guinea baboons due to overcrowding and had fed the primates to lions, tigers, maned wolves and marbled polecats.
In Denmark, Copenhagen zoo was the focus of global protests in 2014 after it put down an 18-month-old giraffe, citing the risk of inbreeding, and fed some of the meat to the zoo’s lions.
For Clauss, the heated debate unleashed this week recalled one of the emails sent to Copenhagen zoo after the euthanasia of the giraffe. “It said: ‘Why do you have to kill animals to feed your carnivores? Can’t you just buy meat?’”
While he did not think the view was representative in any way, he marvelled at how the Danish appeal had served to kickstart a global conversation. “The amazing thing is that we learn about these things because of zoos,” he said. “And not because of what we do at the supermarket.”