From Fluffy to Food: Denmark's Zoo Asks for Pet Donations to Feed Predators

This is your News You do not Need podcast.

There are moments when I wake up, scroll through the news, and think, “Today’s world is stranger than the one I fell asleep in.” This is absolutely confirmed by the fact that, in Denmark just a day ago, an actual zoo posted on social media asking citizens if they’d kindly consider donating their beloved pets—to feed the zoo’s predatory animals. That’s right, Fido and Fluffy, you might want to hide under the bed, because Denmark is taking ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ to a place even a Bond villain would wince at.

I imagine the scene: a family, teary-eyed, standing outside a zoo with a bunny named Marshmallow, telling themselves, “It’s what he would have wanted—being gently euthanized and served à la carte to a lynx.” Yes, the zoo did clarify the animals would be ‘gently euthanized’ before becoming dinner, which is simultaneously the least and most comforting sentence I’ve ever heard. The online reaction? A war of words only the internet could produce: half the crowd screaming “monsters!” and the other half calling it “an ecological solution.” It’s probably the first time a Facebook argument has involved both animal rights activists and hardcore environmentalists hurling carrot emojis at each other.

Of course, this wasn’t the only moment of supreme oddity in the news cycle. Meanwhile, in India, panic unfurled as a flotilla of luminous UFOs swooped across the night sky—at least until it turned out they were pigeons strapped with colored lights, launched by pranksters who probably thought the aliens needed more feathers. Local police sorted out the cosmic cooing and, in the process, likely ruined a sci-fi writer’s next pitch.

But let’s circle back to Denmark’s “Bring Your Own Food” pet drive, because I can’t help but picture an ad campaign. Forget “Adopt, Don’t Shop”—now it’s “Adopt, and Eventually Offer Up to Carnivores.” Somewhere in the world’s oddest Venn diagram, Danish zookeepers and Dr. Frankenstein have finally met.

Perhaps the zookeeper pitch meeting went something like this:
“Okay, budget’s tight and lions aren’t loving the tofu.”
“What if we—hear me out—crowdsource the menu from the pet aisle?”

It doesn’t help that this comes the same week Americans were once again panicking about mysterious lake monsters—a woman snapped video of undulating black humps in Lake Champlain. There’s a part of my brain that sincerely hopes Champ, the legendary monster, is just crossing the border into Canada to avoid being fed Danish lapdogs.

As bizarre as all this sounds, there’s a special comfort in realizing that somewhere, someone’s job involves fielding angry emails about guinea pigs and dietary enrichment for wolves. The lesson here? Sometimes reality out-weirds fiction, and if your hamster starts eyeing the passport drawer, maybe just let him go this time. I cannot promise you’ll need this information, but if it helps you win an awkward trivia night, you know where you heard it first.

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