For Berlin Zoo animals, the tastiest Christmas leftovers are the trees

Bison and ibexes munching connected fir leaves. Reindeer prodding branches with their antlers. Elephants tossing trees connected their backs and nibbling connected the conifers.

These were the playful scenes astatine the Berlin Zoo Wednesday, wherever animals feasted connected and cavorted with leftover Christmas trees. The astir 200 firs were donated by adjacent retailers to springiness the animals a “festival for the senses,” according to a zoo statement.

The trees supply “not lone a root of nutrition to immoderate animals but besides enactment arsenic … enrichment” owed to their antithetic signifier and smells, arsenic good arsenic the tingly feeling connected the tongues of animals that travel into interaction with the conifers, the zoo said.

Only unsold Christmas trees that person not been treated by chemicals are utilized for the event, according to the Berlin Zoo, which is not supported by German taxpayers. It said the coronavirus pandemic had depleted its fiscal reserves and that it appreciated the enactment successful thin times.

The Prague Zoo besides had a akin thought this week: Six twelve unsold spruces were fixed to animals, who ate the needles oregon scratched their backs connected the branches, Agence France-Presse reported.

“It’s a artifact for the animals alternatively than food, a caller stimulus, entertainment,” said zoo manager Miroslav Bobek. “Many animals that are not strictly herbivores get them arsenic a toy.”

In the United States, immoderate 25 to 30 cardinal existent Christmas trees are sold each year, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. But amid increasing clime consciousness, much radical are putting their trees to alternate usage aft each vacation season.

A 6½-foot gangly Christmas histrion that ends up discarded has a c footprint of astir 35 pounds, according to British biology consultancy Carbon Trust. Small farms and carnal sanctuaries, for instance, are asking radical to donate their Christmas trees alternatively of discarding them.

The Carl E. Dahl House, an carnal therapy and rescue installation adjacent Worcester, Mass., precocious urged radical to fto its goats recycle Christmas trees for them.

Americans make 25 percent much discarded betwixt Thanksgiving and Jan. 1 compared with different times of the year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.