I got a lot of feedback on my latest column. The theme of food rules. This is what we deal with every day. And we are rapidly approaching Advent and Christmas – the peak of treats and feasts. However, the part about feeding your own animals generated a lot of interest.
What may seem strange at first glance makes a lot of sense at second glance: our predators in the zoo need meat. Whether our snow leopards eat a piece of a cow from the Zurich area or a piece of an antelope from a zoo, it makes no difference to the snow leopard. On the contrary, with the antelope, we know perfectly well that she ate only the best grass, without unnecessary drugs or antibiotics. And we have the certainty that the antelope had a wonderful life until it was killed, that it could walk with its herd every day in our vast Leva savanna – something that is not offered to every cow.
In addition, with some species of animals in the zoo, there is often an excess number of animals. But what does “excess” mean in this context? Let’s stay with the antelopes.
There are two species in our Leva savannah, the impala and the black antelope, which, unfortunately, has become extinct in nature. As for impalas, the zoo recently launched the European Endangered Species Program (EEP), so it is responsible for all impalas in European zoos. Impalas live in groups of several females with cubs, but only with one adult male. This means that there are several females for every male.
Every healthy population has newborns. Only then the population remains stable and there are enough young animals to replace the dead old animals. However, in nature, males and females are born approximately equally, which is quite logical. Because males that cannot find a group of females for themselves, live alone or with other males, easily become prey to predators. Therefore, many young males are required in order to end up with enough adult males.
Zoos do not have this factor. Since our impalas do not need anything, they always get enough food, and they do not have predators, diseases or parasites, everyone here survives, regardless of whether they are male or female. Therefore, an excess of adult males automatically arises. They can no longer stay with us, but EEP places them in other zoos. But if there are no free places, they are fed to our predators instead.
For our predators, this is a welcome change and a great treat. You get flawless meat from our own good animal husbandry.