auxetism enthusiast

Oh, hard to watch, is it? Hard to watch these Black teens retaliate? Hard to watch them do, to an oppressor, exactly what said oppressors have done to Black people for centuries? Hard to watch a cop on the receiving end of a beating for once? I hope that Roman Candle was heavy.

Was it equally hard to watch when, a week ago, an Ohio cop assaulted the 15 year old Kaelynn Reynolds? Threw her to the fucking ground, shoved her against his car, pressed his knee into her, and filed a charge against her spitting at him?!

No, we know what this man's doing. He wants to rally violence against these kids, who have all, no doubt, already been racially abused, profiled, and harassed by the police. Look at his language. "Horrifying." "Severe." "Mob."

I don't know what sparked this, but those teenagers have my full support, and I hope they'll be okay.

I got a second ask on this topic, I'm going to paste it below and answer both at one.

"What is your take on the Danish Zoo asking people to donate unwanted pets to feed their animals? I’m in Australia and this is something unthinkable to me, no zoo here would ask for pets to feed lions so I wanted your perspective."

For anyone who missed it, here's what I think is one of the earliest pieces of reporting in English.

I can't get google translate to work on the text of the zoo's original IG post, but as interpreted by the media: the zoo is asking people to donate domestic and/or livestock animals in order to feed them out as (pre-killed) whole prey.

There's three things to discuss here, really. The practical/operations aspect of why they're asking, the emotional aspect, and the cultural differences involved. I can only really speak to the first two, so I'm hoping Danish readers will chime in about the latter.

The first thing to know is that feeding out whole prey or partial carcasses is really normal. It's important enrichment for carnivores, and it also has impacts on their jaw strength and the bone development in their skulls. In the US (which is the only country I can speak to knowledgeably), they're obtained different ways. Many whole prey animals are purchased from companies specifically breeding feeder animals - think like mice and rats and chicks. Larger animals are a little more complicated because they're expensive to buy. In many cases, especially for smaller facilities and sanctuaries, livestock that's going to be euthanized or culled is often donated to be used as food. I've seen it with cows, horses, and turkeys, and I think it happens with other species. To be clear, these donations are pretty closely vetted and are not sick with something that would be unhealthy for the carnivores: often they're old animals reaching end of life, or animals that have been injured and need to be let go. I don't know how larger urban zoos do it, but I know of smaller zoos and sanctuaries that will have the animals transported to them live and then butcher them themselves. So what the Aalborg zoo is doing is saying hey, we would like to feed out more whole prey, if you have an animal that you no longer want to keep (euthanasia in this sense seems implied, someone who is Dutch please check me), please consider donating it to us.

The problem is, right, that's a really hard thing to hear for the public. Especially if you're in another country and not looking at the original post in the original cultural context, instead encountering it through the Western media lens. I'm kind of surprised that's the way they decided to solicit donations - it makes me wonder what else is going on that they didn't to make the request privately to farmers or such, since that would be the US approach. Part of what makes the post so shocking is that it they asked for "pets" and not "livestock" or "farm animals", insofar as we know from the translation of the post. The idea of a pet has a level of emotional meaning that farm animals generally don't to many American (and probably other Western) readers. It's a very emotional thing to consider for anyone who has a close emotional bond with an animal.

Now, the aspect I can't comment well on is the cultural context of animal death and use in Denmark. I know that European zoos are much more casual about euthanasia for population management reasons, and that maybe there is less public distress over it compared to the US? Marius, the giraffe euthanized in 2014 who was then necropsied in front of the public for educational purposes, was at the Copenhagen Zoo. There seems to be different mentality in parts of Europe than in the US around animal management - and this is not an implication that it's ethically worse or anything - but I don't know how it manifests. I'd guess, though, it's part of why the zoo felt comfortable making a public request of their audience.

To follow up, I did find this article about a woman who donated a pony to the zoo in 2020, and it's in line with my interpretation of the situation. Here's a quote from the article:

"A 44-year-old Danish woman revealed that she once decided to donate her daughter's 22-year-old pony to Aalborg Zoo to be euthanised and fed to lions due to the pet's severe eczema and excruciating pain. Her comments came amid recent backlash against Aalborg Zoo after it asked people to donate small and healthy pets to be used as food for captive predators. The woman, named Pernille Sohl, told The Times that in 2020, she decided that Chicago 57, a German riding pony, had to be put down. While speaking to the outlet, she said she understood how the decision may sound "very dramatic and bizarre". However, the animals being sent to the zoo were "going to be put down anyway". "But they are going to be put down anyway, and it is not like they are alive when they are given to the predators," Sohl added.

The article also adds that so far in 2025, the Aalborg Zoo received "22 horses, 53 chickens, 137 rabbits, and 18 guinea pigs as donations." So clearly this isn't a new program (those can't have all been donated in the week since the Instagram post) and it's something a decent number of people are contributing to. I would guess it's almost, if not entirely, animals that are at end of life for various reasons, and their owners would prefer they have value in death. I don't find that shocking or extremely upsetting.

The Danish zoo world is extremely casual about animal death - moreso than the Danish public. At the zoo where I'm currently employed it's... well, it's not exactly celebratory, but when an animal is chosen for euthanasia (usually because it's a surplus), staff treat it like a fact of life and try to make the best of the situation; usually by putting the body to use and celebrating that usefulness. Euthanasia isn't joyful, but butchering animals and feeding animals is.

Aalborg Zoo has been requesting pet and livestock donations on their website for a decade or more, and they've been accepting donations since opening in 1935. The only reason it got picked up by the news is that they shared a reminder on their social media, and that the Danish news have nothing interesting to report at the moment (in spite of the government’s ongoing financial discrimination against unemployed immigrants, but I guess that’s not newsworthy...)

All zoos in Denmark take pet/livestock donations and feed whole prey, but Aalborg Zoo is particularly commendable for having an open kitchen where guests can look on as feed is prepared. You can see the kitchen in this vlog (and of course guests are kept about 2 meters away from the feed by a fence):

Afaik Aalborg Zoo doesn’t raise their own livestock, but it’s not uncommon for zoos here to occasionally feed their own hogs, goats, and even cattle to their carnivores. The zoo I’m currently working at culled their cattle a month or two ago because they were getting old, and there’s no reason to let good meat go to waste. They also have a surplus of piglets and, well, big cats gotta eat.

This situation really is just Marius 2.0. News needing a 'wacky' headline to catch people's attention and not caring about the zoos (and EEPs) they're hurting in the process.

(ideally, we can discuss sexgender as a construct together, but I understand in popular discourses there is a lot of work to be done before the average perisex cis person (or, let’s be real, even the average intersex or trans person) will be comfortable and familiar with the idea that these are not distinct natural phenomenon that can appear “aligned” or “unaligned” with assignment but rather are part of the same social/economic/political hierarchy through which almost if not all global societies are structured)

but the immediate, most pericis-normative starting point, (at least within my own social context & I think in many others) is to start directly and constantly challenging the idea people have that “sex” and “gender” are completely distinct, and that “sex” is biological/material and “gender” is psychological/immaterial.

In 2025, if you say “gender is a social construct” even violent transphobes will agree with you.

They have named their movements (e.g. "gender critical") and slogans (e.g. "sex based rights") around the ideological separation of sex and gender. They do this in order to maintain the naturalized categorization of sexgender class through “sex,” while channeling all criticisms of this system as criticism of “gender” (which they then conflate with trans people specifically, and trans women especially).

The separation of these constructs is being used currently to displace and direct all grievance about sexgender based violence onto transfeminized populations.

I believe that at this moment, it is a strategic rhetorical move to begin to directly target this construct of “sex” which houses this ideological commitment to naturalized class hierarchy. Draw attention to it and challenge it whenever you can.

“Abolish sex assignment.”

“Sex is socially constructed.”

“Sex is constantly redefined for political purpose.”

“ASAB is not a euphemism for sex categories but a critique of them”