zoo animals eat prunings

An information sheet picked up a few years ago at the San Diego Zoo states that five workers regularly cut animal browse from the plants they have growing at the zoo, and from gardeners who have plants that need cutting or removal.

Eucalyptus foliage is shipped to zoos across the USA for koalas.

Ficus foliage is shipped fresh to Sumatran rhinos at the Cincinnati and Bronx zoos. Elephants also eat it, as well as just about anything else they can get.

Gorillas need fresh banana leaves.

Galapagos tortoises and Chacoan peccaries eat cactus pads.

Various primates, like Orangutans, Bonobos, Langurs, eat hibiscus, mulberry, eugenia, coprosma.

Giraffes, eland, and some animals I've never heard of eat acacia branches. Weedy Acacia cyclopis is being eliminated from native plant preserves it has invaded, and used as animal feed.

San Diego Zoo uses 15 tons of bamboo a year, 3 tons of ficus a month, 750 lbs of acacia a week, and 550 pieces of eucalyptus a day.

This sounds like an interesting way to put pruned branches to good use.


Diane Whitehead, who lives nowhere near a zoo, but feeds fruit tree branches to visiting deer.


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