Danish zoo asks for unwanted pets to feed its predators
Aalborg Zoo has asked for donations of live chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs, which it says are "gently euthanised" by trained staff.
The zoo also accepts donations of live horses – with owners able to benefit from a potential tax break.
Posting on Instagram, the zoo explains it has a "responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals" and smaller livestock "make up an important part of the diet of our predators".
The zoo says the food provided in this way is "reminiscent of what it would naturally hunt in the wild" – and that this is especially true for the Eurasian lynx.
Other predators being kept at the zoo include lions and tigers.The small animals can be donated on weekdays, with no more than four at a time without an appointment.On its website, underneath a picture of a tiger devouring a piece of meat, Aalborg Zoo lays out the conditions for donating horses.To be eligible they need to have a horse passport and cannot have been treated for an illness within the previous 30 days.If they are successful in handing over their animals, horse donors can then receive a tax deduction.In a statement, the zoo's deputy director, Pia Nielsen, said the zoo's carnivores had been fed smaller livestock "for many years"."When keeping carnivores, it is necessary to provide them with meat, preferably with fur, bones etc to give them as natural a diet as possible," she explained."Therefore, it makes sense to allow animals that need to be euthanised for various reasons to be of use in this way. In Denmark, this practice is common, and many of our guests and partners appreciate the opportunity to contribute. The livestock we receive as donations are chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and horses." – BBC
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COPENHAGEN – A zoo in Denmark has appealed to the public to donate their healthy unwanted pets as part of a unique effort to provide food for its predators. Aalborg Zoo has asked for donations of live chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs, which it says are "gently euthanised" by trained staff. The zoo also accepts donations of live horses – with owners able to benefit from a potential tax break. Posting on Instagram, the zoo explains it has a "responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals" and smaller livestock "make up an important part of the diet of our predators". The zoo says the food provided in this way is "reminiscent of what it would naturally hunt in the wild" – and that this is especially true for the Eurasian lynx. Other predators being kept at the zoo include lions and small animals can be donated on weekdays, with no more than four at a time without an its website, underneath a picture of a tiger devouring a piece of meat, Aalborg Zoo lays out the conditions for donating be eligible they need to have a horse passport and cannot have been treated for an illness within the previous 30 they are successful in handing over their animals, horse donors can then receive a tax a statement, the zoo's deputy director, Pia Nielsen, said the zoo's carnivores had been fed smaller livestock "for many years"."When keeping carnivores, it is necessary to provide them with meat, preferably with fur, bones etc to give them as natural a diet as possible," she explained."Therefore, it makes sense to allow animals that need to be euthanised for various reasons to be of use in this way. In Denmark, this practice is common, and many of our guests and partners appreciate the opportunity to contribute. The livestock we receive as donations are chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and horses." – BBC
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HAPCHEON – At 08:15 on August 6, 1945, as a nuclear bomb was falling like a stone through the skies over Hiroshima, Lee Jung-soon was on her way to elementary school. The now-88-year-old waves her hands as if trying to push the memory away. "My father was about to leave for work, but he suddenly came running back and told us to evacuate immediately," she recalls. "They say the streets were filled with the dead – but I was so shocked all I remember is crying. I just cried and cried." Victims' bodies "melted away so only their eyes were visible", Ms Lee says, as a blast equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT enveloped a city of 420,000 people. What remained in the aftermath were corpses too mangled to be identified. "The atomic bomb... it's such a terrifying weapon." It's been 80 years since the United States detonated 'Little Boy', humanity's first-ever atomic bomb, over the centre of Hiroshima, instantly killing some 70,000 people. 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Japan pretends not to know. Korea is no better. They just pass the blame – and we're left alone."Shim now lives in Hapcheon, South Korea: a small county which, having become the home of dozens of survivors like he and Ms Lee, has been dubbed "Korea's Hiroshima".For Ms Lee, the shock of that day has not faded – it etched itself into her body as illness. She now lives with skin cancer, Parkinson's disease, and angina, a condition stemming from poor blood flow to the heart, which typically manifests as chest what weighs more heavily is that the pain didn't stop with her. Her son Ho-chang, who supports her, was diagnosed with kidney failure and is undergoing dialysis while awaiting a transplant."I believe it's due to radiation exposure, but who can prove it?" Ho-chang Lee says. "It's hard to verify scientifically – you'd need genetic testing, which is exhausting and expensive."The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) told the BBC that it had gathered genetic data between 2020 and 2024 and would continue further studies until 2029. It would "consider expanding the definition of victims" to second- and- third-generation survivors only "if the results are statistically significant", it the 140,000 Koreans in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, many were from by mountains with little farmland, it was a difficult place to live. Crops were seized by the Japanese occupiers, droughts ravaged the land, and thousands of people left the rural country for Japan during the war. Some were forcibly conscripted; others were lured by the promise that "you could eat three meals a day and send your kids to school."But in Japan, Koreans were second-class citizens – often given the hardest, dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. Shim says his father worked in a munitions factory as a forced labourer, while his mother hammered nails into wooden ammunition the aftermath of the bomb, this distribution of labour translated into dangerous and often fatal work for Koreans in Hiroshima."Korean workers had to clean up the dead," Shim, who is the director of the Hapcheon branch of the Korean Atomic Bomb Victims Association, tells BBC Korean. "At first they used stretchers, but there were too many bodies. Eventually, they used dustpans to gather corpses and burned them in schoolyards."It was mostly Koreans who did this. Most of the post-war clean-up and munitions work was done by us."According to a study by the Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation, some survivors were forced to clear rubble and recover bodies. 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But peace without apology is meaningless," says Junko Ichiba, a long-time Japanese peace activist who has spent most of her life advocating for Korean Hiroshima points out, the visiting officials gave no mention or apology for how Japan treated Korean people before and during World War multiple former Japanese leaders have offered their apologies and remorse, many South Koreans regard these sentiments as insincere or insufficient without formal Ichiba notes that Japanese textbooks still omit the history of Korea's colonial past – as well as its atomic bomb victims – saying that "this invisibility only deepens the injustice".This adds to what many view as a broader lack of accountability for Japan's colonial Jeong-gu, director of the Red Cross's support division, said, "These issues... must be addressed while survivors are still alive. For the second and third generations, we must gather evidence and testimonies before it's too late."For survivors like Shim it's not just about being compensated – it's about being acknowledged."Memory matters more than compensation," he says. "Our bodies remember what we went through... If we forget, it'll happen again. And someday, there'll be no one left to tell the story." – BBC
