{"id":119079,"date":"2025-08-04T20:39:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119079\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T20:39:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T20:39:10","slug":"zoo-asks-people-to-donate-their-small-pets-as-food-for-captive-predators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/119079\/","title":{"rendered":"Zoo asks people to donate their small pets as food for captive predators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 A zoo in Denmark is asking for donations of small pets as food for its predators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Aalborg zoo said it is trying to mimic the natural food chain of the animals housed there \u201cfor the sake of both animal welfare and professional integrity\u201d and offers assurances the pets will be \u201cgently euthanized\u201d by trained staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The zoo in northern Denmark explained in a Facebook post that \u201cif you have a healthy animal that needs to be given away for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"A zoo in Denmark is asking for donations of small pets as food for its predators.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/CO7ORBIBTRCSTILPFGK26YYK3U.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>A zoo in Denmark is asking for donations of small pets as food for its predators.(Musat from Getty Images via Canva)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The zoo points to guinea pigs, rabbits and chickens as possible donations. After being euthanized, the animals will be used as fodder, the zoo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cThat way, nothing goes to waste \u2014 and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being of our predators,\u201d the zoo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The online call for pet donations is accompanied by a picture of a wildcat baring its teeth with its mouth wide open and a link to the zoo\u2019s website, noting the facility also is interested in receiving horses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The zoo, which could not immediately be reached for additional details, does not list other pets or animals as possible donations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) \u2014 A zoo in Denmark is asking for donations of small pets as food for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":119080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[74319,29062,74316,74317,10180,746,990,54189,7926,30189,63804,159,74318,67,132,68,18855,58581],"class_list":{"0":"post-119079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-chickens","9":"tag-denmark","10":"tag-denmark-zoo","11":"tag-donating-pets","12":"tag-donations","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-food","15":"tag-guinea-pigs","16":"tag-pets","17":"tag-predators","18":"tag-rabbits","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-small-pets","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-zoo","25":"tag-zoo-animals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114972430536300780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}