Feeing surplus deer to big cats in zoos?

I’ll comment to the link article (if there are better/other articles, I’ll read them too, but I already have to search other stuff for work)…

I’ll start by saying that very little is known about anesthesia in animals, especially compared with humans. This is even more so in exotics. There are no large scale studies, those that have more than a case report have still very few subjects, and sometimes there is nothing on the species you’re dealing with… So you adapt and infer from the closest species you have information about.

Seventeen and sixteen are old ages for ruminants in general, I don’t know exactly where the onyxes in the article fit… And although zoo animals get somewhat regular checkups, they are not observed as closely as some companion animals. They may have had some underlying disease that made them riskier candidates for anesthesia.

In the case of the sloth… Again, 28 years seems long-lived for a sloth. And a surgery for repairing twisted spleen with gastric dilatation and volvulus is a risky surgery that is done in dogs, and they carry a poor prognosis. In dogs, where there is more known about this condition and surgery, the odds are still crappy. Please put this in perspective when reading things like this.

I cannot honestly imagine any circumstance where rounding up, capturing, transporting, quarantining, then live-feeding ungulates would be cheaper/safer/easier than just shooting the excess deer, deep freezing them for a while, then feeding them whole-carcass.
If absolutely nothing else, transporting antlered ungulates is a tremendous PITA, and dangerous for everyone involved. It’s not like moving domestic livestock.
I am surprised more zoos don’t feed whole-carcass “prey model” diets to their carnivores, though.

Also, this:

Chronic wasting disease, a mad-cow-like disease found in deer, might affect the big cats. Right now, there’s no definitive test for CWD that doesn’t involve killing the animal that might have it.

It also means the possible loss of a member of a vulnerable (in the case of lions) or endangered (in the case of tigers) species. Some tiger subspecies are critically endangered. A good zoo wouldn’t want to unnecessarily risk the life or health of a member of an endangered species.

I’m not sure what problem you’re trying to solve here. Deer overpopulation? If so, there are far too few big cats in zoos to make even a tiny dent in the deer population.

I volunteered at the National Zoo, in the reptile house and in the invertebrates, and the only animals that I recall getting live feed were the chameleons and some of the spiders, who got crickets. Everything else - snakes, crocodiles, giant pacific octopus - got pre-killed feed. There are a number of reasons for this, many mentioned above.

First and foremost, you have to consider the safety of the zoo animals. An animal that is being hunted and has no means of escape will fight back. It probably won’t kill its predator, but it can do some major damage, and even a small cut or bite can cause a life-threatening infection. Live animals also carry disease and would need to be quarantined. And you want to make sure that each animal is getting the right amount of food, which is easier to control if the food isn’t running around and hiding. And of course, there’s no reason to subject the feed animals to a prolonged, scary, painful death, when quick ‘n’ painless will suffice.

Then there’s the logistics. You either have to raise your feed animals on site, or have a way to transport them regularly. Then you have to physically deliver the feed animal to the zoo animal without endangering yourself in the process. We had a room in the basement for breeding crickets and mice, but once you start getting into rats, rabbits, and the like, it’s a lot simpler to just pull one out of the freezer, thaw it, and serve it up. It’s the same reason we don’t all keep herds of live cattle around for when we want a steak.

And finally, it would freak a lot of people out. Whenever we fed a whole rabbit to one of the boas, there would always be a few folks who would get upset. They couldn’t believe we would feed a cute, fluffy bunny-wunny to that slimy*, scary snake. They’d say, “Why can’t you just feed it some meat?” When we pointed out that a rabbit *is *meat, they’d say, “Yeah, but you know what I mean.” They didn’t want to see the meat personalized. If it were a *living *cute, fluffy bunny-wunny, those folks would be calling PETA, 911, and channel 7 before the boa could swallow. I can only imagine the backlash if it were Bambi being eaten, in large, bloody chunks.
*Snakes are *not *slimy. They are just glossy, like chrome.

Maybe we should just Release the Tigers! for a few days in areas where deer are a bit too prevalent, like certain suburbs. :smiley:

Deer, children, unattended pets, old people, morons…it’s all good.

Thanks for all the informative responses. I can see that it just isn’t practical for a variety of reasons.

WTH? Have these guys never seen nature documentaries? I grew up with National Geographic specials and Wild Kingdom, and I think these videos are interesting but hardly worth the kind of excitement they are expressing.

Okay, you make some good points, and I know you have actual veterinary training, but my perceptions have been shaped by previous problems at that particular zoo.

Hey, thank you! :slight_smile: Yea, that would make me go “Erm…”

I disagree. Remember that part in Jurassic Park where the stick a goat in the T-rex enclosure for its lunch? Remember the look on the kids’ faces? I never considered that they might have any other reaction, and I’m certain that even people who found the idea disgusting would watch.

The first response to many OPs is often the best. This is one of those times.

Dunno if this applies to big cats, but kitties that are not shown how to murder their prey quickly by an adult kitty are lucky if they figure it out on their own. Also, kitties who are not raised as hunters very often just don’t see the attraction later in life. Instinct only goes so far, there are elements of education and upbringing that come into play.

And even if the big cats DO figure it out, do you really want a load of big cats living at the zoo who have come to the realization that they can kill their own meals and that it’s satisfying to do so?

Yeah, for the most part, the big cats at the zoo see me indifferently as: “Not the human that feeds me.” I don’t think I’d want a big cat to look at me and think: “Once I peel of the sweater, that’s good eatin’.”

In the wild, yes a deer’s last moments may be full of nothing but sheer terror and brutality. Yes, it’s a cruel way to go. If not necessary, why bother with the brutality? If I ate meat, I really wouldn’t want to have to stab the cow to death until it couldn’t run away, and die slowly as I started gnawing on its guts while it was still alive. I mean, Jeebus! We don’t do that, for the human food chain. We kill 'em quick to minimize suffering. We don’t need to do it for animals in captivity either.

I do know that zoos in China will allow you to buy a goat and throw it into a pit of lions yourself. I think it’s nothing short of barbarism.

But they get the chance to escape. If you put a domestic cow who would never normally encounter animals, and surround it with about four or five hungry tigers, of course it’s going to get killed. It’s not really any different than serving up raw meat at this point–where’s the hunting?

The look of horror or the “Cool!” look?

When I was a teenager living on a hobby farm, I had a barn cat.
She had kittens a few times.

I went out there one night just after dark to find her right outside the barn with the three kittens and a mouse. She would let them chase it around and play with it. When I sat on the fence to watch, she came over and sat on my lap, watching them from the new vantage point. Whenever the mouse got away from them, she would jump down, track it down and bring it back to them, then resume her perch on my lap.

One of the coolest things I’d ever seen. Not from the position of the mouse, of course, but from the position of watching a mother predator teaching her children about their prey.

When someone suggest something like this, be it using up excess Deer or excess geese (Canada geese are all over Chicago suburban corporate parks), you always read how these animals are not “fit to eat.”

I don’t know why it’s always put like that except to stop people from shooting them.

I think that the animals are fit to eat and the reason they put things like that in the paper is simply to deter idiots with no idea how to fire a gun from shooting things (be it deer, geese or accidently people) in dense urban areas.

The only reason I can see not to cull the deer or geese and use them for food for zoos and the like is fear. A lion or tiger is an expensive animal. It is safer to feed them something which the zookeepers know is safe, than feed it a deer and have the deer be full of poison or something. After all it only takes one sick deer to spread it around.

So my guess is if you killed the deer you’d have to make sure the animal is fit for consumption and if you go to all that trouble you may as well just use special food you know is safe.

Deer are a dime a dozen but lions and tigers are expensive.

I bet there is someone somewhere employed by Disney who’s job it is to scour the internet for Disney themed porn and send cease and desist letters.

As to the OP. Interesting solution to the overpopulation problem but from a practical standpoint probably a no go for all the other reasons mentioned. For the people worried about the kiddies and the public image of the zoo you could always release the deer to the pens after hours.

I came in to suggest we release the lions to the deer but Chimera beat me to it.
::shakes fist::

I think the national zoo should just let the lions out at night in Rock Creek Park to hunt, with a promise to be back before the gates open.

Maybe they could start a bunny breeding program? With 2 rabbits at year zero, you’d probably be up to producing 1/day in 3-4 years. It’d be like a housecat chasing a mouse, instead of a 2 oz. mouse vs 10 lb cat it’s a 3-5 pound rabbit vs a 300 lb cat.

Something similar DOES happen in US zoos. I asked a keeper at the San Diego Zoo many years ago how they stopped the guinea pigs in the childrens zoo from breeding themselves into overpopulating the “island” they were housed on. The keeper told me, in hushed tones, that they were allowed to breed to their hearts content and the resulting “extra” critters were fed to the raptors. “But don’t tell anyone, it upsets the children…”

One other thing, I was told once that wild deer can’t be used for soup kitchens, food banks or school lunches because the meat isn’t USDA inspected. Made sense to me.