Zoo forced to feed some animals to others as lockdown leaves it with no money to buy food
The director of a popular zoo in northern Germany has revealed that they might be forced to feed some of their animals to others as the coronavirus pandemic has meant no visitors and left them with a desperate shortage of funds.
"We've listed the animals we'll have to slaughter first," admitted Verena Kaspari, the director of Neumünster Zoo, to German outlet Die Welt.
Kaspari said that such a decision would be the last resort because they had animals that could not be taken anywhere else, something that was common practice for zoos that reached a point where they could not care for them anymore.
This includes Vitus, a polar bear, who is the largest of his kind in Germany. Standing at three-and-a-half meters long, he cannot be held at any of the country's other zoos.
Feeding animals like him, as well as penguins and seals, which need large quantities of fish every single day, is expensive, Kaspari said, adding, "If it comes to it, I'll have to euthanize animals, rather than let them starve."
"At the worst, we would have to feed some of the animals to others."
She said making such a decision would be "unpleasant" but that even such an extreme measure would not necessarily be enough to solve the financial problem of not having any visitors in the coming months.
Easter used to be one of the busiest weekends of the year and would attract thousands of families, who would spend money that would help sustain the zoos for the rest of the year.
However, because the coronavirus pandemic has seen all non-essential public places shuttered to citizens for the foreseeable future, Kaspari said she expected to lose at least $191,000 -- money that would have gone towards feeding the animals.
Neumünster, as well as the other zoos in Germany, are not covered by the country's emergency fund for small businesses as they belong to an association that doesn't fall in the category. So, to survive, they are now asking for public donations and appealing to the government for $109 million that would go towards the cost of looking after their animals.
The country's national zoo association (VdZ) has argued that, unlike many other businesses, they cannot go into hibernation and run down costs as animals are fed daily, looked after, and kept at the right temperature. VdZ chief Jörg Junhold said the lockdown was costing zoos around $545,000 weekly in lost turnover.
It's not just monetary worries either, with some zookeepers warning that the crisis had an emotional cost for certain animals who were missing the attention they got from the public.
Berlin Zoo spokeswoman Philine Hachmeister said they had apes who "especially love to watch people" and seals and parrots were also fascinated by their visitors, adding, "for them now it's really pretty boring."
She also talked about their two baby pandas, Meng Xian and Meng Yuan, and said it would be a shame for people to miss them growing up before imploring them to watch them online.
"The panda twins are adorably sweet," she said. "Constantly we're thinking 'the visitors should be watching them live.' We don't want the little pandas to be grown up by the time we finally reopen."