- The meat to feed carnivores has to come from somewhere, but this is a little brazen.
A Danish Zoo has recently stirred up a bit of controversy, to put things mildly. A few months ago, it asked people to donate their pets to the zoo.
“Oh, that’s cute,” you might think. However, the donated animals wouldn’t become new attractions.
Instead, they’d become food for the zoo’s carnivorous animals.
Aalborg Zoo put out a Facebook post informing people that they could donate various animals to be fed to the zoo’s residents. On the acceptable list of pets were, among others, chickens and rabbits.
Now, every animal has to eat, and carnivores must consume meat. Nonetheless, commenters quickly expressed their outrage at the zoo’s practices.
For its part, Aalborg Zoo has explained that using pets as food is nothing new in Denmark. Even in the U.S., domestic animals regularly end up on zoo menus — although not typically in such a public fashion.
Strange Donations
The Aalborg Zoo is located (surprise, surprise) in Aalborg, northern Denmark. On July 31, 2025, the zoo posted an announcement on Facebook that invited people to donate to the zoo.
Instead of money or volunteer hours, however, the zoo asked for people’s pets. Specifically, they asked for animals that could be fed to Aalborg Zoo’s carnivorous residents.
“Chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs make up an important part of the diet of our predators. In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity,” the zoo wrote.
“If you have an animal that has to pass away for whatever reason, you are welcome to donate it to us. The animals are gently euthanized by trained staff and are then used as fodder,” the announcement continued.
Aalborg Zoo later went out of their way to clarify that they won’t accept dogs or cats. However, the post quickly caught the attention of the public, and people didn’t like what they saw.
Although the post is a few months old at this point, the hubbub hasn’t really died down. People outside of Denmark in particular expressed their shock and disgust at feeding pets to zoo animals.
Often, the words people used were inappropriate enough that Aalborg Zoo has now limited commenting on the post. Yet, it’s still up and the program remains in place.
‘This Practice is Common’
Not all commenters disapproved of the post. Many of them, especially people actually from Denmark, supported the program as environmentally friendly and creative.
Aalborg Zoo has defended feeding household and farm critters to zoo animals. Pia Nielsen, the Aalborg Zoo deputy director, pointed out that the program has been in place for ages.
“When keeping carnivores, it is necessary to provide them with meat, preferably with fur, bones, etc., to give them as natural a diet as possible,” she told NPR. “It makes sense to allow animals that need to be euthanized for various reasons to be of use in this way.”
Additionally, Nielsen said many other zoos in Denmark engage in the same practice.
“In Denmark, this practice is common, and many of our guests and partners appreciate the opportunity to contribute,” she said.
It’s a Lion Eat Chicken World
It is indeed necessary for carnivorous animals to eat meat, which necessarily comes from other dead animals. You might argue that you could just throw them a few steaks and that’d be it, but the reality of the situation is more complex.
Many carnivores, such as big cats, can’t really survive on muscle meat alone — at least if you want to keep them healthy. Lions and lynxes, for instance, go after organs first, because they contain much more nutrients than muscles.
Additionally, carnivorous animals’ digestive tracts have adapted to process bones, skin, bits of fur, and other parts they inevitably swallow while eating. In order to keep their tummies working as they should, they need to get their claws on the occasional whole carcass.
Feeding them entire animals is common in all zoos around the world (or at least the ones that take caring for their animals the least bit seriously). For instance, the Nutritional Advisory Group of the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) notes that predatory animals must have access to entire carcasses as part of a healthy diet.
“Feeding vertebrate animal carcasses to captive carnivores has been a management tool used by zoos in the United States for many years,” the AZA said.
“It encompasses a wide variety of prey types/form of presentation, from whole body to portion controlled, and has the beneficial effects of stimulating activity and improving normal feeding behavior.”
That said, America has a much larger surplus of dead cattle and horses to give to zoo animals, so there’s no need to ask for people’s pets. As such, they can also ask for meat donations less publicly than Aalborg Zoo.
Cruel Realities
This isn’t the first time Danish zoos have stirred international controversy. In 2014 and 2015, the Copenhagen Zoo and Odense Zoo (respectively) made headlines for killing a perfectly healthy animal.
The Copenhagen Zoo euthanized a two-year-old giraffe while Odense Zoo killed a 9-month-old lion cub. Both animals were then dissected as a show for schoolchildren to teach them about animal anatomy, and the giraffe was also fed to lions in public.
Sounds cruel, right? Once again, though, the situation isn’t as straightforward as you’d think.
All zoos, everywhere in the world, regularly put down healthy newborn animals because they don’t have the capacity to keep them. Space and food are precious commodities in zoos, and there are only so many animals the zoos can afford.
Of course, they’ll likely try to get another zoo to take the newborn animal first. But if no one wants it, its fate is sealed.
Additionally, there’s the issue on inbreeding. With most animals kept in small, enclosed spaces, there are few things keeping a parent and a child from getting frisky if the latter reaches maturity and nature takes over.
We probably don’t have to tell you why incest isn’t healthy. So, once again, a cull may be the only available option.
And the part about feeding the giraffe to lions? Well, if you have a dead giraffe on your hands, you might as well put it to good use. Ask any zoo worker anywhere, and they’ll admit to doing the same thing.
We’re not so sure about taking the animals apart while children watch, though. Suppose the kids have to learn sometime what makes living things tick.
Want to read more about weird Danish stunts? Check out this story about an artist who created a “conceptual artwork” — by stealing $84,000 from a museum.