Hold your horses.
A Danish woman donated her daughter’s pet pony to a zoo in Denmark — so it could be eaten by lions.
Pernille Sohl reportedly gifted her teenage daughter Angelina’s German riding pony, Chicago 57, to the Aalborg Zoo in the country’s northern region.
Zookeepers have said they’re hoping to mimic the natural food chain of predators by feeding them smaller donated pets.
“It might sound very dramatic and bizarre that you would feed your pet to animals in the zoo,” Sohl, 44, told the Times UK. “But they are going to be put down anyway and it is not like they are alive when they are given to the predators.”
Aalborg Zoo has asked for donations of “a healthy animal that needs to be given away for various reasons” — including guinea pigs, rabbits and chickens — to be “gently euthanized” before being used as a meal, the facility said in a Facebook post.
“In zoos we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity,” it added.
Horses will also be accepted — and euthanized and slaughtered — by the zoo, with owners eligible for a tax deduction, Aalborg Zoo added on its website.
“[N]othing goes to waste — and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being of our predators,” the zoo wrote on Facebook.
Sohl said that her daughter’s pony was donated after it was euthanized due to pain from a longterm health struggle in 2020.
Chicago 57 was suffering from a form of eczema brought about by mosquito bites that became irritated in the summer and lead to open wounds that risked infection. He had to wear a jacket and leg protection toward the end of his life and was 22 when he died.
Angelina was just 13 at the time of her beloved pony’s death — and Sohl gave her the choice of whether or not to donate the body to the zoo.
“I gave Angelina the various options and she chose the one with the zoo, because it made the most sense,” Sohl said.
“She wanted to follow the food chain. She wanted Chicago 57 to benefit other animals,” Sohl added.
Sohl — who runs a small farm in Denmark that allows children with mental health issues to spend time with horses — had the Aalborg Zoo euthanize Chicago 57, and she was there for the procedure.
“There was a zookeeper standing there cuddling and kissing him — as if it was me standing with him,” she said.
Aalborg Zoo houses three carnivorous and dangerous species: Asiatic lions, polar bears, and the Sumatran tiger, per its website.
Sohl was so impressed with the process that she tried to bring another horse that had died to Aalborg last year, but was turned down because the horse was taller than the maximum height required for his body to fit in the zoo’s refrigerator. His remains were instead repurposed as dog food.
The zoo has received global backlash in the past few weeks after its Facebook post requesting small animal donations went viral.
But this year alone, Aalborg Zoo has so far received a total of 22 horses, 137 rabbits, 53 chickens and 18 guinea pigs.
The Times reported that cats and dogs are not accepted as donations for the animals.
