Overview

• Following criticism of pet donations at Aalborg Zoo and the Nürnburg baboon cull, institutions in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia have publicly outlined their feeding and population-control measures.
• Most zoos procure predator feed by purchasing meat from certified suppliers or breeding feeder animals such as rats, mice, chickens, guinea pigs and rabbits.
• In-house culls are tightly restricted to cases of unmanageable surplus or severe injury, with carcasses used responsibly to nourish lions, tigers and other carnivores.
• Zoo Dortmund has explicitly rejected donated household pets for feed, citing quarantine protocols and veterinary safety as reasons to rely solely on internal stock.
• Germany’s animal welfare law (§17) has prompted over 350 complaints and a prosecutor’s probe, driving zoos to increase transparency and adhere to strict welfare standards.