Calls arise in Japan to feed crop-damaging deer, wild boars to zoo carnivores
April 11, 2021 (Mainichi Japan)
A puma eats a hunted wild boar at Morioka Zoological Park in Iwate Prefecture. (Photo courtesy of the zoological park) FUKUOKA A former zookeeper and others in Japan are calling on zoos across Japan to feed their predators with wild boars, deer and other animals that are locally captured to prevent crop damage. Normally animals captured during crop protection work are simply disposed of. But in 2017 Omuta City Zoo in the southwestern Japan prefecture of Fukuoka began to feed the captured pests to carnivores at the zoo, ahead of other such facilities in the country.