What do zoos do with dead animals?

Look man, we're not giving it to you. Please stop asking.

When I was in college the biology department got donated half of a lion for dissection by veterinary students. We got the back half. I feel like that said something significant about the quality of my education.

Who tf just donates half a lion?

How do you end up in a position where you have two halves of a lion to donate in the first place??
- If you only have the space to display half a taxidermy lion, which half you choosing?
- Step one involves owning a dead but intact lion, and a saw.
Who got the other half?
- University of Chicago I think.
- The vultures at the zoo got to it first.
Which half
- We got the lion ass.

I think I remember some years ago a zoo fed a dead giraffe to the lions and people went absolutely insane about it. I'm not sure about the details anymore, they might have killed it because there wasn't enough room in the zoo for it? Either way I didn't get it, what do they think the lions are fed any other day? Animals that weren't killed explicitly to become food? Some cows that couldn't bear existence on this world anymore and offered themselves as lion food? Where is the difference?

I remember that, I thought it was poetic. I also remember the pearl clutching outrage.

Though a few visits ago at my local zoo two of the orangutans were beating the shit out of a seagull for fun, with naught outrage.

So there's probably a double standard built-in.
- No outrage, but any cheering?
Considering how much meat is required to keep a lion fed per day, part of me thinks feeding it to lions would be sensible but on the other side it depends on making sure the meat is cleaned and that the animal that died didn’t die of a cause that would cause internal damage to the lion. Lions on the Serengeti feed on freshly caught food so their catch is usually pretty clean.
- You'd expect the zoo staff to be fairly aware of the state their animals are in. They usually have vets coming in to check on every critter regularly.
- "Jim, get over here! We've got giraffe today!"
  
  "OH FUCK YEAH!"
The zoo near me a few decades ago had an accident where a lot of their reindeer got pregnant before the male could get neutered. They kept all the female offspring but they couldn't risk having two males in the same enclosure and no nearby zoos needed male reindeer or also couldn't accommodate them so they had to put them down and ended up feeding them to the carnivores in the zoo.
- Kind of related: The barn where my kid goes to for lessons has an option for the horse owners that in case their animal dies (there are strict rules about the cause of death etc), the animal's corpse can be donated to the local zoo to feed carnivores.
Marius! It's my local zoo.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ENnNNVOEDZ4&pp=ygUOTWFyaXVzIGdpcmFmZmU%3D
... what do they think the lions are fed any other day?

tofu

A local zoo has a "taxidermy department" and noteworthy animals are preserved or skinned and the skins sold to friends of the zoo.

Its kept very secret because it would be publicly unpopular. A friends dad has a mountain lion skin because he is a contractor who does a lot of work for the zoo and did a few jobs for them that NEEDED to be done basically for cost when they were suffering some financial troubles. They gave him the pelt as a Xmas present.

Source: Trust me, bro.
It is so hypocritical that it’s unpopular with zoo-goers that come to look at animals in cages, while wearing leather and eating other animals.

If you’re against exploitation of animals, please align your actions with your morals and live vegan.
- "If you can't be perfect you have no justification for being good"
- you don't have to be vegan to help stop animal cruelty. there are many, many humane and legit ways to help animals without veganism. not drinking milk or eating eggs doesn't matter.

There's an urban legend in New York City.

One day, a patrol car in the Bronx finds a headless body laying in the street. The victim's hands, feet, and skin was removed. There's a massive response to find the deranged killer. Everything gets called off in a few hours, after the coroner realizes that it's the body of a gorilla.

There was a hot dog factory in the area.

So what was the pretended point of the story? They were transporting the skinned gorilla body to be used in the hot dog factory and it fell of the truck or what?
- well yeah
I was gonna say this was some high-quality bullshit but after this year I just assume RFK Jr. was involved somehow.
...And then the gorilla's hand held up one more finger.
For a similar story, which isn't a urban legend. My mother used to be the main resource for an archeological information center in the US Southwest. When work crews dug up a body, she'd get a call from the coroner to ask, "is it yours or mine?" While both are going to want to know the cause of death, the coroner isn't going to open a criminal case for a Native America burial.
- Sounds like the start of a Tony Hillerman [author] Joe Leaphorn mystery. Someone finds a body that looks like it's a Native American ritual burial, but it's not...
  
  [see TV show 'Dark Winds']

My zoo buries them on the premises. I know of a camel, a moose and a few other things got buried there. They have a large plot of land that is used to dispose of organic waste like branches and trees, old compost, etc until it's full and needs to be tricked out to the landfill. They just bury the animals under the ground there.

Thank you for the answer! That makes sense
Fuck that's probably righteous compost by now

What do you do if you have a horse that dies or has to be put down? You call your neighbor down the road who has an excavator and ask him to dig you a horse sized hole. Then you bury it. If you don't, you won't want to leave your house for at least a week.

As someone who grew up with horses, in most cases the hole is dug first with a ramp, the horse is walked into the hole, then it's euthanized.
- Yep.
  
  Hello traumatic memory I had been successfully repressing.
- Definitely easier if you can plan it in advance.
- Why not walk the horse onto the trebuchet and make it your neighbor’s problem?
- And it walks back out much younger? Science is amazing

...one bite at a time?

I have direct experience with this.

In college, I got a job on campus in their Environment, Health, and Safety department. Mostly, I just calibrated fume hoods in labs.

During my time there, a hippo at a nearby zoo passed away. I don’t want to be too specific because it can be a bit icky, but they essentially shipped it to us for incineration.

What a phone call that must have been. I'm amazed that a college would have a big enough incenerator!
- I doubt that the incinerator was big enough, and that's what the "icky specifics" covers...
- It is a large Division 1 university. I don’t know exactly how big the incinerator is. Thankfully I wasn’t the one who handled that particular task.
  
  I assume it comes down to our hazmat clearances, though. Just a guess. That was almost 20 years ago!
Doesn't sound icky. I would assume they used it for science. I'm surprised they burn them.
- Honestly, we probably know everything we could learn from a dead hippo carcass.

Donate to science or cremate.

Living on a farm tells me: Animal Carcass Disposal Options Rendering • Incineration • Burial • Composting

We almost never lost an animal (200 head of beef cattle), but even the best cared for animals past away eventually.

Thank you! That's wild. I didn't think a large animal could be incinerated. The more you know! ⭐
- Well, if you want more information: Biosecure Cow Cremator.
  
  Note, there are two sizes available!
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

Looks like elephant is back on the menu boys!

If the animal was healthy when it was alive and if it's big enough, I believe they butcher the carcass and feed them to the carnivores. ~~I remember a news story about a recently deceased giraffe was fed to the lions in the zoo. ~~

I was wrong, the giraffe was killed to prevent inbreeding.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/02/09/world/europe/denmark-zoo-giraffe/index.html

That sounds like a warning to others lol. Don't inbreed or we'll feed you to the lions
- Tbh, that's just solid advice for anyone.
When giraffes breed as well as they do now, then you will inevitably run into so-called surplus problems now and then.

Bruh

I saw that one zoo cooked up and ate a dead ostrich.

Interesting! There's a butcher shop near me that sells ostrich. I think those ones are raised for meat though.
- You wouldn't want to eat an animal that's died of natural causes, it's usually old and tough, or still died of an undiagnosed infection while old so not further investigated.
  
  All meat sold for human consumption must be certified, not gonna happen with random dead zoo animals in any developed country.
  
  If the zoo staff decide to go for it without, that's probably on them, but they can't sell or even legally give it away.
  
  Ostrich is quite nice though, it's a very lean, red meat. Like a gamey beef I'd say, but not as intense as deer.
thought you meant feeding a lion a dead orca whale. I'm high