When a Danish Zoo Asked for People’s Pets to Feed Their Predators, the Internet Didn’t Know Whether to Cry or Scream

Imagine scrolling through social media and seeing a local zoo kindly asking people to donate their pets—not for rehoming, not for rescue, but to be eaten.

That’s exactly what unfolded last week in Denmark. Tucked away in the country’s quiet northwest, Aalborg Zoo sent shockwaves through the public with an unsettling plea: if you have pets you no longer want—rabbits, guinea pigs, even small horses—they’d be willing to take them. Not to rehome, but to feed their hungry predators.

According to the zoo, the animals would be “gently euthanized” by trained staff before being served as meals to lions, lynxes, and other carnivores. The idea, they explained, is to offer the predators a more natural feeding experience—whole prey, just like in the wild. It’s not about cruelty, they insisted, but about honoring the natural food chain and supporting the animals’ mental and physical well-being.

To them, it’s not cruelty. It’s care.

But as you can imagine, the internet exploded.

Many people were heartbroken, others horrified. Some saw it as a twisted betrayal—how could a place meant to protect animals turn into one asking for beloved pets to become meat? “It’s disturbing,” one commenter said. “Even for a zoo.”

The backlash was loud enough that the zoo shut down the comment section entirely, asking for “respectful dialogue” instead.

If this all sounds familiar, it might be because Denmark has faced a similar storm before. In 2014, Copenhagen Zoo made global headlines for killing a young giraffe named Marius and feeding him to the lions, despite global outcry and thousands of signatures begging them not to.

So here we are again—staring at the uneasy truth that, behind the cages and the conservation messages, zoos still wrestle with wild instincts and ethical gray zones.

And maybe that’s the most jarring part: realizing that even in the name of nature, the line between care and cruelty isn’t always so clear.