The zoo said it accepts donated rabbits, guinea pigs and chickens on weekdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., but no more than four at a time. It also accepts horses for feeding its animals, which it says on its website are euthanized by a zookeeper and a veterinarian.
Gotta eat. Hell, humans eat half those animals too.
Guinea pigs got domesticated for food, and are still a common dish in South America. I am pretty sure rabbits got bred for food as well in Europe
There are people raising rabbits for meat even today.
i rather not search about the topic, so i am going to trust you, i’m afraid of getting stuck in a rabbit hole
You don’t even carrot all to find out?
It is stocked in normal supermarkets in France and Switzerland (at least, surely others too).
I had rabbit when I was in France and it was delicious!
My little cousin found this out at the last family gathering as he enthusiastically showed me a picture of his pet rabbits. Growing up on a farm, my first question was if they were pet or food. His face fell and he asked me if people really eat rabbits. Whoops!
And they are delicious.
Where are you from that it’s weird to you? I wasn’t aware it was uncommon.
Believe there are places that raise capybara for food as well.
I’ve had rabbit a few times in Germany. Quite lean but not bad at all. It’s not that common these days, you can easily avoid it but it’s not hard to find either. There are many hobbyist breeders who sell their rabbits either alive or butchered. I think it’s more common in Eastern Germany though because a lot of people there used to keep rabbits back when meat was rare and traded them with the government.
My grandfather tolled me, you could sell a living rabbit for butchering, go to the butcher to buy a dead rabbit and make a profit in the process.
Yup, they needed as much meat as they could get so they made it profitable. They didn’t let people buy back everything though, one or two carcasses per person. Most people traded them in for chickens because that meant more food.
That seems to be almost exclusive to the Peruvian Andes region, I’m from Brazil and never hear of anyone eating a Guinea Pig there, or even in Argentina and Uruguay.
Sounds like you are missing out. I’d try it.
The idea is not if it is worth trying but that it’s not widespread in south America.
Can confirm that it’s not found in supermarkets in Montevideo nor Buenos Aires.
Fine. Who the fuck is eating chickens? Like the birds!?
in europe? everywhere. Watch roger and me, micheal moores original documentary, and see a lady skinning them.
Afaik humans eat all of those animals.
We eat everything, even ourselves. Just need a little seasoning
I’d say we eat almost everything. Aside from deep sea creatures, which are basically impossible to harvest for food, we tend to stay away from heavy poisonous species like the blue ringed octopus, poison arrow frogs, cone snails. But other than those pretty much anything goes.
I agree with you, but just to be that person:
To know something is poisonous, somebody had to have eaten it at least once.
Now do the math on how many people had to eat blowfish to figure out how to safely prepare it.
Unless we can make a delicacy out of it.
Fugu anyone?
Some things surely also just taste like shit, so we don’t eat those either. I’m just assuming, but, I can imagine.
euthanized by a zookeeper
I gotta ask how. Usual protocol is benzo/barbiturate overdose followed by potassium chloride shot. But the benzos/barbiturates are contraindicated for the fact that they’re feeding them to other animals and potassium alone is torture even if eating something killed by it is fine. That generally leaves stunner and exsanguiation or shooting them.
Bolt gun and exsanguination is pretty common in abattoirs, right? I’d guess it’s probably the same here
For chickens you can shove them into a modified construction cone and then cut off their head
And then chase the body around.
That is the point of the cone. It calms them down so that they don’t panic. Use a very sharp blade so that the head gets cut off in one blow.
The running around is a result of them panicking. When they are calm they don’t do that and there is way less blood.
Sorry, I was mainly just making a joke about the headless chicken
half? which ones do you think we don’t eat?
They probably didn’t know guinea pigs were domesticated for food, and neglected horses
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What about giraffes?
I’ll go ahead and add “Eaten by apex predator” to the list of insane hamster deaths.
I’d like to subscribe to your “Insane Hamster Deaths” newsletter.
I’m just morbidly curious about what sort of situations the little guys might find themselves in.
Might also ask yourself how OP has been conveniently present for so many hamster deaths…
OP is the apex predator he mentioned
I like this. Maybe it sounds bad but when I was a kid a neighbor paid me to kill all his chickens after a hurricane because it was hot and their chicken house was gone. I would have much rather he drove them to the zoo to be fed to the animals there.
Growing up on a farm we killed, plucked and processed a few hundred chickens each year. Kept us and several families in town fed with good quality meat over the winter.
It’s not a bad thing to be that close to your own food production.
These were laying hens though. They would have been better off as zoo food than put in my freezer as crab bait. I don’t think it’s bad to be close to food production. I’m a farmer.
15 laying hens hardly take up much space for laying. Surprising they didn’t just rig up a quick place for them to find cover and let them wander the yard until they figured out a more permanent solution. With hurricane debris around, repurposing wood that’s around shouldn’t be hard to find. Hell some people I’ve seen just throw the wood they bought to cover windows down by the road for trash to pick up. They could have found a downed tree and an ax and they would have hadenough to build a quick structure. Chickens don’t ask for much
For one thing, you were probably really sure to keep the meat from being contaminated with animal feces, or from eating obviously sick animals.
You don’t want to eat chickens that are older or that are unhealthy
Define unhealthy, we definitely dont eat sick birds, but before we knew how much to feed them, we had a LOT of chicken lard. What’s wrong with eating older birds? They’re chewy, sure, but they can still make a tasty soup.
Would they accept donatinons of politicians?
Or billionaires
Do they take landlords?
No, only some species of sealords.
Will they take edgelords?
sadly the big three stopped making half bloods
“Let’s go to zoo, grandma.”
Boss, I want to invite the whole C-Suite to the zoo for a fun time!
Will they accept corrupt politians or CEOs from other nations?
Wow, I didn’t think there would be so many crazy psychos in the comments.
I can get that people might not feel as much empathy with animals than humans (get, not approve) but most of the comments are kitten-drowning level.
You get a pet, which is supposed to be a companion and basically part of your family, and you don’t mind them being torn to shreds?
Okay then, I guess if your kid has a terminal cancer we can also feed him to the tiger? After all in the end it’s just a bunch of meat.
I dunno if they’re psychos, exactly, I’m mostly seeing interesting takes, like the chicken coop that blew away or the fisherman. Varying degrees of “how close are you to this animal,” especially since critters like mice could be a lovely pet or food for an equally lovely snake.
But yeah, couple people don’t turn off their dark humor either, but that’s just the internet. I don’t mind it, I imagine only 1% are actually psychopaths (which is iirc the statistical average, except in business where it’s 4%. And I guess politics, now).
Then again, my instance blocks certain other instances, too. Lol
Not my kid, but if I’m terminal I’m gonna add “killed by some food-safe means and then fed to tigers in front of zoo patrons” to my potential death plans.
“The funeral will be at the civic building at 10am, and the viewing at 12:00 by the tiger sanctuary in Edgewater Zoo”
it’s probably a bad idea for everybody else, as now there’s a captive tiger, that is one that will be around humans forever, that also already are human meat, which is a suboptimal combination
My comment was mostly a joke but that is a fair point. No tiger-pit for body disposal then
If you have a terminal illness they won’t take you as they only want “healthy animals”.
Yeah some of these comments were just disgusting. Do better Lemmy
in the end it’s just a bunch of meat
That’s why it’s back on the menu, boys! The circle of life is brutal. I think everyone in these comments is just externally processing horror at the idea of sending their own pets.
Right? Fucking bunch of irrational horror-filled replies.
Nobody’s suggesting that beloved pets get donated just for the sake of feeding the animals. But if you have a pet you’re planning to get rid of anyway, for whatever reason, some people would prefer to see the pet’s death contribute a final something back. Put it in the same logic as organ donation. Nobody WANTS to see their loved one’s corpse cut open and such, but knowing it helped somebody else in a small way can give some closure.
Getting rid of doesn’t equate to killing unless you’re incapable of planning and managing for the future.
If I’m dying, give me to the birds. But if I’ve, stopped entertaining you, then fuck you.
In many cases, getting rid of a pet does involve killing the pet, as there is only so much space in animal shelters and inflow is a lot more than adoptions. It’s unfortunate, but that’s how it is.
You get a pet, which is supposed to be a companion and basically part of your family, and you don’t mind them being torn to shreds?
This is a fair way to feel about it, but if the question is only what is done with a body after it has been euthanized it seems more like a cultural consideration than an ethical one. Like there are cultures with strong feelings about treatment of human corpses to the point where organ donation is taboo, but that doesn’t mean being ok with family members being organ donors is some awful thing.
There’s a larger question about how pets and other animals are treated, and the thought of someone euthanizing a healthy pet for petty reasons is really disturbing (like stories you sometimes hear about this being done as a way to emotionally abuse someone), but that isn’t exactly the fault of the zoo or its practices.
I’ll agree that it’s weird to say the least that they’re askit for pets, pets should be worth more than just their money.
Having said that, predators need food too. Predators aren’t evil, they just evolved to eat other animals, it’s what they do, it’s what they’ve done for a billion years or so.
I think Denmark should fund zoos better
Apparently nobody here bothered to read the article. It isn’t about funding. Everybody’s just putting their own emotional spin on it without even being aware of the details.
“In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity,” Aalborg Zoo said in a post on social media.
The zoo in northern Denmark said that chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs were an important part of the diet of its predators, which need “whole prey,” reminiscent of what they would hunt in the wild.
“If you have a healthy animal that has to leave here for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us. The animals are gently euthanized by trained staff and are afterwards used as fodder. That way, nothing goes to waste — and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being for our predators,” Aalborg Zoo said.
I’m aware of the details
Why don’t they buy hamsters and what not themselves from providers so that there aren’t emotional connections to the animals at least?
It’s weird to ask for animals where there are inherently emotional connections
Then the question: don’t they have the money?
They’re making the offer available to those who want it, in other words those who don’t see a problem with it emotionally. Some of whom even benefit emotionally from it. Is it very hard to comprehend that different people have different viewpoints on things?
Okay then, I guess if your kid has a terminal cancer we can also feed him to the tiger? After all in the end it’s just a bunch of meat.
That’s a weird comparison, and it’s honestly a sign that you are struggling with separating the two on an emotional level. Which is ironic based on your opening sentence.
Alternatively, you’re too good at separating humans and animals on emotional level, to the extreme degree.
Well the animals are being euthenized then fed to the animals to diversify their diets. If assisted suicide was legal here and I elected for it, I would have no qualms with checking a box that said feed my meat sack to the tigers. Although they might not want to do that as it may encourage the idea that the handlers/vets look a lot like food.
I wish this was a “burial” option over making some creepy guy in a suit richer than he already is because you need just the right box for grandpa’s meat sac.
The comparable situation would be if your family grew tired of you, and some day decide to euthanize you and feed to tigers.
To which your answer is probably “well, I’m a human, you can’t do this to me, I don’t want to be killed against my will”, and we will be back to square one.No, you’re making this about a humans ability to kill the animal, not what should be done with the dead carcus. The animals fate is already sealed, it’s dead whether or not it goes to the zoo. Just means it is either thrown in a furnace or processed some other way.
If you don’t like that humans get to choose whar happens to the animals, I understand… but that’s something that should be protested or brought separately to your politicians.
This is more like saying people shouldn’t be able to elect to donate organs.
Edit: or rather your family deciding to donate those organs to a someone who needs them after you’re dead.
I agree with the other response - I don’t care about my meat sack once it’s no longer operational. Harvest my useful organs for donation, then feed the rest to the kitties.
The difference between humans and other animals is that we understand the concept of death and can make our post-life wishes known.
If my children told me they wanted to be fed to the tigers I’d probably still be horrified by the image of it but I wouldn’t push back.
Our pets can’t communicate their wishes to us, and in all likelihood they don’t care what happens to them when they’re dead. Putting their meat to some kind of use seems far more ethical to me than turning it into ash or sticking it in the ground.
Not gonna lie, I’m borderline getting used to extremism and antisocial behaviour on lemmy. This place feels like 4chan that hates 4chan. The wake-up call for me was when I was arguing against killing everyone on earth because of how shitty the people are, saying that some of us very much enjoy the life. Got downvoted.
I’ve also seen several calls for genocide against Jews. Pretty ironic for a platform that so loudly hates the current genocide.
You’re painting everybody together with one brush. I’m against humanity ending, I’m against genocide, whoever it’s practiced on. I also don’t see a problem with this (what I do have a problem with is the number of commentors who didn’t bother reading the article and are claiming it’s because the zoo is broke).
I’ve also seen several calls for genocide against Jews. Pretty ironic for a platform that so loudly hates the current genocide.
Suggesting that the Palestinian side isn’t an angel either and the Israelis are assholes too, will get you labelled as the world’s most devout othrodox Jewish Zionist to the level of Theodore Hertzl himself.
What did you expect from the platform that was created because reddit banned extremists? Fewer extremists than the place that banned them? Why?
I tend to hope for the best, but you actually hit the nail, I’ve had the exact same thought at the back of my mind about lemmy for quite some time. Much of the community is made up of people who have been banned or disliked elsewhere, so this is their refugee. The very first thing I noticed is how toxic users are with downvotes. It is no longer a community tool about moderating quality discussions, it’s essentially used as a “fuck you”, so I had to disable (hide) it and disregard vote system on this site, especially after seeing how easily it is for people to mass downvote lemmy profiles with multiple accounts (happened to me 2 times, even highly upvoted plain humor comments were suddenly downvoted). My guess is that we’re getting downvoted here, but do you really care?
I’ve used reddit forever—stopped caring about downvotes long ago. You have to realized that the main demographic of any site like reddit or this, specifically the people with accounts, who vote, and comment, are like 50% autistic college age kids (at least on reddit). Those autistic college age kids are now 30+ here on lemmy since reddit has been banning for a while now (remember the ellen pao bans? the chapotraphouse ban? The Voat exodus that turned into lemmy users as well?). Yeah, people suck on the internet. They downvote for no reason. You just develop a thick skin and stop complaining about downvotes or you ban yourself.
My guess is that we’re getting downvoted here, but do you really care?
No, because I know that the people who are downvoting me are probably autistic 20-somethings. I’m superior to them—I’m an autistic 30-something. I know they’re probably stupid because they have yet to develop their frontal lobe enough to participate in normal society so they downvote on lemmy/reddit. I know this because I was that person 10 years ago on reddit—I made my account when I was 17 and I said a ton of stupid shit on there. Who cares.
Showing this to my cats to see if they stop scratching the sofa
Put a blanket over the place that she scratches and/or a scratching pole somewhere near the sofa.
Generally the more scratching poles (or carpets on the floor) they have to scratch, the less they mess with furniture.
They mention animals that are frequently raised as livestock. Chickens, Rabbits, Guinea Pigs are all mentioned. Horse is the only unusual one to me. I’d find it much more upsetting if they were accepting cats and dogs.
-Coincidentally I watched two YT videos yesterday. One was about some homesteaders that were dispatching chickens they raised for meat to share with their village. The other was about some small-time farmers that raise guinea-pigs (among other things) that were used for lawn-mowing. The farmers just anounced in that video that the guinea pigs will also be used as a food source.
Horse is not unusual as meat in the Netherlands.
France as well
Horse is common dog food in Australia
It wasn’t unusual in the UK either.
They eat horse in Korea as well.
These animals’ food has to come from somewhere. Interesting that they’re trying to source locally…
Perhaps it sounds a bit less ghoulish in the original Danish.
Still sounds just as bad but then you have to wipe off the mashed-up pastry bits.
“Slyng ‘lang øre’ over til løven. Den skal jo også æde.”
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“They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there”
I read in another article that the zoo will “gently euthanize” your pet but I have had a vet come out to my farm and caution me about using any animal euthanized with drugs as feed for anything else due to possible bad reactions or side effects. So what is the definition of “gentle” when talking about non-drug euthanasia?
Gas them with nitrogen.
Give ‘em the ol’ Anton Chigurh Special.
Call it, friendo.
Don’t these drugs have short half-life?
Short biological half life. It requires a working liver to detoxify.
Electricity?
“It will be humane”
I’d say a gunshot to the head is just as humane as drugging the animal.
Even more so and approved by the AVMA in their euthanasia guidelines if done correctly (right bullet, muzzle energy, shot placement and trajectory) and you can do it without any strangers showing up wanting to poke them with needles. Say your goodbyes, put their favorite treat on the ground and when they put their head down to eat it…works like switching off a light. A bit bloody but…it’s a farm
I’d say no as you need the right voltage and it hurts while they are dying… especially if you do it wrong. A well placed bullet is way faster and more humane IMHO
“Can we…can we watch? It’s just, Sprinkles, he’s…he’s a really bad dog. Dumb as a post, humps everything and everyone, snaps at you if you try to pet him. I’d really like to see a tiger just go to town on this awful, awful dog.”
*Kristi Noem has entered the chat…
She’s frothing at the mouth at the thought of getting American zoos to do this
To be fair to the zoo, everything they are asking for aside from the horses is available from RodentPro. I don’t like the idea of taking public donations like this because I’d worry about some weirdo poisoning something.
Animals with known medical histories will sometimes get “reused” after they expire. Time, money, and effort was put into these animals that didn’t make it, and in the wild, they would have served this purpose anyway. But those animals aren’t pets either.
Really the only news here is the public solicitation. I don’t think it’s the best look for the zoo, I don’t know their financial situation, but I can’t imagine they will be flooded with animals to make it worth the people this will turn off. The only thing we ask the public for is donations to buy food, canned or bagged commercial pet foods, or donations of fish that people catch.
I mean, Laura Loomer has literally called for 65 million people to be fed to alligators, so this would practically qualify as a moderate position by current GOP standards.
Maybe don’t keep animals captive if you need to petition people bring their pets for food. Wtf. Zoos are a mistake.
WTF is this take. It’s not that they can’t afford food, they’re trying to keep their food supply more ethical.
“In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity,” Aalborg Zoo said in a post on social media.
Zoos shouldn’t even exist, they’re inherently unethical. Asking people to donate family members they don’t want to have them killed for food is insanity.
This is an outdated take. Modern zoos play important roles in species preservation. Also public outreach and perception does wonders for conservation efforts worldwide.
Pets get put to sleep ALL the time, for a wide variety of reasons. The zoo is offering a chance to make the death more meaningful and contribute something back. If it’s not for you, that’s fine, but there’s no reason to shit on it. It will benefit others, and nobody loses from it.
I used to very much feel that way. I was incensed that we’d keep animals in tiny boxes, which must be existentially destructive to the psyches of these creatures.
Recent visits to moderns zoos and conservatories have shown me that zoology has seriously evolved from when I was younger. I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t feel the way you do, just maybe take a look at what they’re up to now, I think the underlying approach has changed for the better.
I’m know there are still lots of for-profit zoos around the world, however, that treat the creatures like hell. And in that case I don’t defend that even remotely. That’s where I’d be in total agreement with your sentiment.
If you’re American or Canadian or Australian (maybe others?) the secret is to make sure you visit “Accredited” zoos and aquariums.
They have regular inspections and assessments to ensure they meet Requirments for enclosure space sizes and maintenance and cleanliness quality, behaviour and mental enrichment for the animals (of which this would be something, providing natural prey instead of ground meat), health checks and veterinary care, documentation of all of the above, etc.
If somewhere isn’t accredited is risky as to whether or not the animals are properly cared for.
It is AZA in America, CAZA in Canada, and AAZA in Australia. There may be others for other countries but those are the ones I’m familiar with.
(Source: former zookeeper, AZA)
We are in the for-profit zoos
Zoos serve a purpose it lets the public see the animals. And yes that has a positive benefit. If people don’t see them they don’t care about them.
Good thing people care enough to be fine with holding them captive so people can gawk at them then.
Zoos are the reason many species survive today. Conservation, breeding, and awareness programs and the such have saved species of every type on every continent.
Or like, we could vote to preserve nature without needing to gawk at a piece of it?
We can. Be honest, I estimate the odds of such a vote passing at roughly 0%. Most people just don’t care. To get them to care, you’d have to have an organisation handling awareness and outreach and… oh look, we’ve got a zoo.
OK, please do that, then we can talk about shutting down zoos. When do you expect to be done with your little project?
Ahh yes, the classic tiger meal - euthanized Yorkshire terrier.
Seeing as they specifically mentioned rabbit, chicken or guinea pig… You might want to check the breeding cert on that terrier of yours.
Yup. Im not a fan of anything being kept as a pet that needs to be fed live things. It takes the whole “survival of the fittest” out of it. Breeding mice to feed to snakes, poor mice never stand a chance. And that is some bullshit. Snake catches the mouse in the wild, thats fair game. But breeding them just to be eaten alive??? Thats fucking vile.
Responsible snake owners don’t feed their snak live mice
