The zoo worker claims an entire litter of critically endangered Visayan warty pigs were eaten by their father the day they were born
Thursday 05 February 2015
Far from being safeguarded for future generations, some of the world’s most endangered species have been eaten by animals at one of Britain’s best known zoos in recent weeks.
The astonishing revelations, from a whistleblower at Bristol Zoo, emerged today. They detail how an entire litter of critically endangered Visayan warty pigs was eaten by their father the day they were born. The mother, ‘Manilla’, had to be euthanised after being attacked by the male warty pig ‘Elvis’. The pair were brought to the zoo last year in a bid to breed the species, dubbed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as being at extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
“On the day the female gave birth to piglets the male immediately ate them all, and then also attacked the mother by eating her rear end. She was so badly injured she had to be put down.” The zoo worker added: “This meant the loss of a family of rare warty pigs that could have been avoided by keeping the male separate.”
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the zoo claimed the incident was “completely unforeseeable” as staff did not realise the female was pregnant.
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