Not a zoo but a large public aquarium. The animals are fed the same restaurant quality seafood you eat. Sea otters are extremely expensive to keep for this reason. So are sharks, dolphins, beluga whales. And anything tropical and saltwater.

And the keepers are working for love because God knows it sure isn't money.

Barbarella_ella Report

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Many 'vegetarian' animals are also feed a small amount of meat. Because in the wild the plants, vegetables, and fruits they eat often has bugs in in them that they also eat.

It's not really a secret and if you ask a keeper about an animal's diet they'll tell you, but many people have this notion of herbivores only eat plants and carnivores only eat meat.

The reality is there are very few pure herbivore or carnivore in the wild. One of the first things many predators eat from a large prey animal is the stomach and large intestines to get that partly digested plant matter.

DeathMonkey6969 Report

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If an animal dies of natural causes we sometimes feed them out to other animals. Had a zebra pass and we fed out to our lions. A local farmer had a calf that was kicked in the head by its mom and we fed the whole carcus out to our African wild dogs. Both times were during public visiting hours so I guess it's not necessarily a secret just not well known.

TheWalkingMeg Report

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I used to work at a natural history museum next to a zoo. Often when an animal was euthanized it would be donated to us. My colleagues once took a giraffe apart with a chain saw, put the parts in the bed of someone’s personal pickup and drove it over. From there the animal was taken apart, and the meat and organs were separated from the skeleton. Then a colony of dermestid beetles would remove the remaining flesh from the skeleton. There were 8 colonies and it took about a year for them to clean a large skeleton like a giraffes. Then the bones and hide and other salvaged parts were preserved in the museums collection. During my tenure I saw a lion, a gorilla, a giraffe, and more monkeys than I could count.

Blondebitchtits Report

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I volunteer at an aqurium and the people always ask about whether the sharks that are in with the fish ever eat the fish officially we say, “we keep them well fed enough that they don’t”, but on more then one morning on my initial walk around I have found remains of fish that definitely weren’t feed fish. On a particularly memorable occasion I found the head of a large porgy just sitting on the bottom. A diver went in and got it before guests arrived.

SunflowerPrincesy Report

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Have you watched the series called The Zoo based in the Bronx? There's also an aquarium version. It's super interesting & goes into great detail about how the animals are cared for behind the scenes.

My favorite topic they cover is the enrichment exercises. They put a lot of research & detail into keeping the animals engaged & entertained. The best one was the see through tongue maze they built for an ant eater to explore.

Snoobs-Magoo Report

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In the case of most large Zoo's (including specifically the San Diego Zoo, and Wild Safari Park which is like a sister zoo), the money spent on maintaining & curating the plant life is many multiples more than the money spent on maintaining & curating animals. The staff to maintain the plant life is many multiple's larger than the staff for animals, too.

Cody6781 Report

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I don't feel there's anything that people wouldn't believe, but there's definitely a lot people don't think about. 


Many of the animals may be on some form of birth control. In the case of great apes, it's probably the same one most humans take. 


Zoo's don't deliberately hide animals from you, but that doesn't mean they're aren't animals that are not visible to the public. Animals can be off habitat for any number of reasons (social dynamic issues, special treatment, quarantine, solitary species, etc). 


Keepers spend WAY less time than you think directly interacting with the animals. 


Keepers have college degrees. That wasn't always the case, but you won't be considered for a job anymore without one unless you have a ton of experience. .

Civilized_Primate Report

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Was on an inside the operation - behind the walls corporate trip to big western USA zoo. Two employees took us around unseen side of elephant enclosure. Picture gate made of metal bars about 4 inches wide and big elephant tall. Employees repeatedly said, “Stay 10 feet from bars.” Elephant had recently grabbed someone with its trunk. They were bludgeoned to death as elephant repeatedly slammed them into gate.

ilikemagnets33 Report

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A book I read by a zoo vet said in the good old days, if an exotic animal died , and the death was not infectious, they would have a BBQ in the back lot for employees. For example, roasted Impala.

iloveschnauzers Report

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Zookeepers frequently make less than $25 per hour and zoo interns aren't paid and it's competitive, disgusting, thankless work. I interviewed for an admin job at a top 5 zoo and was shocked the job I was interviewing for paid more than most zookeeper jobs that were posted. I didn't even get the job I interviewed for, but talked to a zookeeper turned nurse to humans in-depth later, and she just spilled the beans about how thankless/underfunded of a field it is. I encourage every young person I meet who's interested in zoology to research it heavily because its *not* a job for those who want money or prestige or to smell good, ever.

agent-assbutt Report

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I met a guy who worked at a zoo once and he said almost any animal could escape/ get out if they really wanted to. But most don’t.

Unable_Strawberry_69 Report

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Asked my girlfriend who used to work for the Nashville Zoo. She said that there at least, the animals have different stage names that the public know them by than the keepers use for them.

PerInception Report

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My neighbor is a vet tech at our local zoo, the other year she bought home an ostrich egg. They gifted it to me since it happened to be my birthday

But yeah, not a keeper but apparently at my local zoo the staff just get ostrich eggs occasionally.

Key_Corgi_7435 Report

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Sometimes if there is an excess of a certain breed of animal, let’s say giraffes, that none of the other nearby zoos can take in, will be given to carnivorous animals in the zoo, such a lions, tigers etc. (At least in Europe).

GhostLuu Report

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I believe there are three private governing bodies (accreditation organizations) in the U.S., and the industry is not monitored by local, state, or federal oversight. As with all organizations like these, money and politics plays a big part in who/when a zoo gets accreditation This of course leads to a fox-watching-the-hen-house type of scenario where what's best for the animals is not always what's best for the zoo.

Dull-Mix-870 Report

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