Broken-hearted? Zoos will let you name a cockroach after your ex and watch it get eaten
Category: Stranger Than Fiction
Via: buzz-of-the-orient • 4 years ago • 9 commentsBy: Alexandra Mae Jones
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Broken-hearted? Zoos will let you name a cockroach after your ex and watch it get eaten
The San Antonio Zoo is allowing spurned lovers to purchase a cockroach to name after an ex for Valentine's Day -- and then watch the cockroach be eaten by other zoo animals. (©Lovely Bird/Shutterstock)
TORONTO -- If you’ve been dumped by the person you thought you’d spend Valentine’s Day with, the San Antonio Zoo has a way to soothe your broken heart.
“Cry Me a Cockroach” is the name of the San Antonio Zoo’s skin-tingling event which offers the recently single and the sufferers of unrequited love a way to celebrate the day as well.
For US$5, anyone can purchase and name a cockroach, which will then be fed to one of the zoo’s animals as a snack, turning wasted love into a savoury treat.
Birds and reptiles will be offered the cockroaches, the zoo said in a press release.
If you want to spend a little more money and don’t get sentimental over cute, fluffy rodents, you can pay US$25 to name a rat which will become food for a reptile.
The feeding frenzy will take place at the zoo on Feb. 14, but it will also be live-streamed on the zoo’s Facebook page, for those who are unable to make it out to the zoo itself.
It’s far from the first time that a zoo has offered the chance to name a cockroach after an ex.
The El Paso Zoo in Texas offered to feed named cockroaches to their meerkat population in 2019. The concept was so popular that it is back for a second time this year.
The El Paso “Quit Bugging Me!” promotion runs for a few extra days, with feeding occurring from Feb. 14 to 16. It doesn’t cost anything to register a name with the El Paso zoo, but lovers are encouraged to donate.
According to their website, the director of the zoo, Joe Montisano, will also eat a cockroach himself for every US$1,000 raised. As of Friday afternoon, he was up to four cockroaches.
Saddened by all the cockroach hate? One zoo has chosen romance over revenge for a roach-tastic Valentine’s celebration. The Bronx Zoo has a program where you can pay to name a Madagascar hissing cockroach as a celebration of your love’s endurance, because, as the zoo puts it on their website , “roaches are forever.”
The San Francisco Zoo’s promotion closes on Feb. 13, so if you want to buy a bug from them, you’ll need to move fast.
I learned a lot about fundraising when I was an officer of a children's charity, and the Director of Development for a hospital, but I have to say that this is the most unique fundraising concept I've ever heard of or even imagined. It sure is heck is a change of pace from anything else on the Front Page.
I bet this works super well! Funny as heck!
I'm sure they'll sell out of cockroaches. Isn't America one of the leading countries for the popularity of divorces?
Nope, America has plenty of cockroaches. Only here they are also called lawyers and politicians....
What is worse is the lawtician. Seems to be quite a few of those.
Yep.
Not ALL lawyers, Ed, but politicians? Okay.
Five bucks for a roach? Holy cow. I have seen places where one could get thousands of them for free.
At least let me buy a rat and watch it get devoured by a snake.
About 35 years ago my friend Bob had an apartment with a terrible roach infestation but he had a 50 gallon fish tank with Oscars and a Jack Dempsey. We'd spend hours smoking weed and catching roaches to feed to the fish and the fish loved those roaches. They'd go after those roaches like Jaws and jump right out of the water. Who'd a thought you could have so much fun with cockroaches.