Denmark: Feeding Unwanted Pets to Zoo Predators in the Name of "Nature"?

Lions are among the captive predators in the Aalborg Zoo in northern Denmark. Peter Bischoff/Getty Images

In Denmark, animals are recognized by law as sentient beings - but that doesn’t seem to stop zoos from asking you the public, to donate live animals to be killed and given to captive predators. Chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, even horses and pets; they’re all welcome; as long as they are “unwanted” animals. The zoo’s social media account states that they are “humanely euthanized” by the staff before they are thrown to the lions and tigers.

Explain to me how what they are doing is justified because they’re mimicking the natural food chain.

Let me be clear: there is nothing “natural” about caging wild animals for our entertainment and then killing other sentient beings behind glass for the purpose of feeding them. These predators are not “wild". They live in enclosures, on a schedule, surrounded by gift shops and fences.

This is not nature; it is a spectacle for profit!

Denmark likes to promote they are leaders in animal welfare, they have banned fur farms and foie gras whilst also being the world’s biggest pork exporter with gigantic factory farms, animal testing, and a public dissection of a healthy giraffe at the Copenhagen zoo in 2014.

What you are witnessing in Danish zoos is not education; it is cruelty disguised as education.

References:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0r7z2ynd2lo

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/science/zoos-denmark-food-pets.html