"Zoos have a responsibility to mimic the animals' natural food chain for animal welfare," Aalborg Zoo writes on Facebook. The European lynx, in particular, would welcome the pets, as it"requires whole prey that resembles the prey it would hunt in the wild," the zoo explains. However, the pets must be healthy.

Calls for boycott after zoo kills healthy bears

On its website, the zoo writes that it also “gratefully welcomes live horses,” which are then euthanized and slaughtered for food.

The Danish zoo previously came under fire in 2017 when it was revealed that healthy brown bears were being killed. Because the bears were too old to participate in the breeding program, the animals were euthanized.