Overview

• Aalborg Zoo posted a call for owners to donate healthy pets so they can be humanely euthanized and fed whole to its lions, tigers, lynx and polar bears.
• Zoo officials argue that whole prey supports natural hunting behaviors and provides key nutrients like calcium from bones and dental cleaning benefits from fur.
• The program has already yielded more than 137 donated rabbits in 2025 despite the zoo continuing to spend several million Danish kroner on conventional feed.
• Zoo Dortmund publicly ruled the scheme unworkable on biosecurity grounds, saying quarantine and disease-screening demands would be disproportionate.
• German prosecutors are investigating the recent culling of 12 baboons in Nuremberg and animal-welfare groups are demanding clearer public disclosure of surplus-animal killings.