# Do zoos ever live feed their predators? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 2, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681 "2021-11-02T15:42:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/42 "2021-11-04T14:24:48Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Want to talk “not humane”? Not really. :Shudder: I read about the hogs. That’s completely horrifying. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/43 "2021-11-04T14:27:07Z")
I thought it was carbon monoxide poisoning that was humane. Did someone conflate it with carbon dioxide? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/44 "2021-11-04T14:31:21Z")
Carbon monoxide poisoning is humane, but it’s tricky to do it safely, as you need to protect the people from the CO. CO2 isn’t humane, but it’s very safe to work with. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2021, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/45 "2021-11-04T14:41:10Z")
Around here, predators in zoos aren’t fed live animals, but, like on the Youtube videos above, they avail themselves of wild animals that end up inside the predators’ enclosures. This happens all the time, as seagulls, thrushes, squirrels etc. are so common in the zoo area. ---
**Author:** ![anny\_m](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@anny\_m](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anny_m)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/46 "2021-11-06T18:18:47Z")
The sister of a good friend of mine is the director of the nutrition department at a major zoo. I could ask, but I’m pretty sure that they do not use live mammals as feed for predator species. However, IIRC the zoo had a problem during the pandemic getting deliveries of live insects which were a dietary requirement of a species or two. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/47 "2021-11-06T21:27:10Z")
I think it was the Maui Ocean Center that had a prominently placed sign stating that yes, sometimes sharks gets hungry and eat the fish with them in the tank. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2021, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/48 "2021-11-06T22:49:31Z")
I once saw a Family Circus cartoon where Mommy is coming out of a commercial aquarium with four crying children, and greeting Daddy by saying, “A big fish ate a little fish.” ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2021, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/49 "2021-11-07T15:31:43Z")
well, according to a documentary, some had feed their tigers with prey…covered in sardine oil. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/50 "2021-11-11T18:13:18Z")
My daughter was a big fan of going to zoos so I’ve gone a lot. We never specifically went to see feeding time but did see it sometimes. It was always just chunks of raw meat. Except one time. It was feeding time for the alligator. Lots of kids watching. The keeper pulls out a dead but very fluffy whole white rabbit. There were horrified screams from the kids. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/51 "2021-11-11T21:51:05Z")
We went to the Zoo here once when they fed the polar bears live fish. The Boy Scout troop that was also there was in heaven watching the polar bears kill and eat the fish. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2021, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/52 "2021-11-11T22:31:19Z")
They used to feed live anoles to the toucans and similar large jungle birds at the San Diego Zoo. Every once in awhile you could see an escapee in the bushes near the aviary enclosures. ---
**Author:** ![El\_DeLuxo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_deluxo/32/9043_2.png) [@El\_DeLuxo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_DeLuxo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2022, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/53 "2022-01-29T11:44:01Z")
That is just fucking awful. I hate the way animals (especially the ones we eat most of) and their suffering are just casually dismissed and discarded and wasted by industry with no consideration for how much unnecessary agony is caused to them. Any meat processor who does this to swine or poultry ought to have their license yanked and their business shut down. There’s just no reason or excuse for this kind of gratuitous, egregious cruelty, even if it _does_ save corporate and the stockholders a few bucks. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/54 "2022-02-06T11:26:03Z")
i know in the la zoo the surplus rodents were used to feed the surplus reptiles once upon a time … the video was how I learned snakes ate live food … although these days I think the food is frozen ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/55 "2022-02-06T11:48:27Z")
In the UK it’s pretty much illegal to feed live vertebrates to animals- except the rules are a bit fuzzy and not enforced when it comes to fish. It _is_ possible to get a permit to allow live rodent feeding for something like a rare snake that is absolutely refusing dead food, but it’s supposed to be a temporary situation, with the animals weaned onto dead as soon as possible. Obviously no-one’s really enforcing that on private keepers (though it’s strongly frowned on) and accidents do happen, when mixed exhibits go wrong or wild birds land in an enclosure, but zoos try hard to avoid that - for a start, wild animals are a disease risk. It’s a competitive job, with crap pay; you’re not going to be a zookeeper here unless you really really like animals. Anyone actually attempting to deliberately stick a gazelle in a lion enclosure would probably be chucked in themselves by an angry mob of the public and/or zookeepers. When it comes to re-release programmes, generally, zoo animals are never going to be released themselves- they may be parents or grandparents of them, but the animals which are planned for release are not going to be the ones who’ve spent years in a zoo all comfortable with humans being around and expecting food to appear on a timetable. Incidentally, contraceptive implants are bloody expensive- and not all that reliable- for zoo animals, so old fashioned separating the animals during the breeding season, or permanent sterilization of animals which are not wanted in the breeding programme is more common. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/56 "2022-02-07T03:09:16Z")
In the 1970s, Professor Hal Markowitz of San Francisco State University was a leading innovator of “environmental enrichment” for captive animals. One of his enrichments was a meatball-shooter for captive big cats. It was basically a little catapult that launched meatballs into the air, and the cat had to leap at it to catch it. If you lived in the Bay Area around that time, perhaps you remember the two Pacific White Sided Dolphins that lived in a tank at the Cal Academy of Sciences Aquarium. Two of his students were working with those dolphins to give them a little bit of “enrichment” – basically having them work for their food. (Any observers would say “doing tricks” for their food.) This was generally done at times when the aquarium was not open to the public. Dolphins eat a LOT of fish. I don’t think it would be remotely practical to feed them live fish. When I worked with dolphins in Hawaii, we had whole freezers full of 10-lb boxes of frozen fish. Every day we had to thaw out two of those boxes (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) to feed two dolphins. Freezing the fish also kills internal parasites they may have, which might otherwise infect the dolphins. That might also be an issue with feeding any kinds of live animals to other animals too. > **[Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo: Markowitz, Hal: 9780442251253: Amazon.com:...](https://www.amazon.com/Behavioral-Enrichment-Zoo-Hal-Markowitz/dp/0442251254)** > > Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo \[Markowitz, Hal\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Behavioral Enrichment in the Zoo [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235886146\_Remembering\_Hal\_Markowitz](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235886146_Remembering_Hal_Markowitz) > **[470.pdf](https://www.behavior.org/resources/470.pdf)** > > 225.55 KB > [@](#): > > Since the 1970’s, Hal Markowitz, Professor of Animal Behaviorat San FranciscoState University, has made significant contributions in expanding the way we think about enrichment. Markowitz has worked with a variety of animals including Harbor Seals, monkeys, and dolphins. Regarded as one of the single most influential people in the area of enrichment, Markowitz extended the work of earlier operant conditioning researchers. His use of systematic data collection procedures in studies such as teaching animals how to obtain their own food and make choices in their environments advanced the field of enrichment. > > Today, zoos around the world provide animals with training for stimulation, behavior management and health care procedures. Animals are provided with problem solving activities in the form of games, using materials, and foraging for food. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/57 "2022-02-08T02:25:47Z")
I worked at the LA zoo for a few years in the 1980s. It would surprise me to learn that unwanted exhibit animals were being given to snakes. They may well have bred their own rodents to feed to snakes, however. I didn’t work directly with those keepers. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/58 "2022-02-08T02:31:00Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > Incidentally, contraceptive implants are bloody expensive- and not all that reliable- for zoo animals, so old fashioned separating the animals during the breeding season, or permanent sterilization of animals which are not wanted in the breeding programme is more common. Have you ever come across using a marble as a sort of IUD? I know it’s been tried with horses and is spectacularly ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![Latimera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/latimera/32/497_2.png) [@Latimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latimera)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681/59 "2022-02-08T06:38:21Z")
It isn’t clear to me whether the OP is referring only to feeding live mammals to predators, or any live animals to any predators. If the latter, then zoos and aquariums feed live prey all the time. Namely, live crickets, mealworms, earthworms, flies and other invertebrate prey to small predators. Live fish too. Some reptiles will only eat other reptiles, which used to be fed live. I don’t know if that is still the case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-zoos-ever-live-feed-their-predators/953681.md?page=2)