In ZOO With Predators, Argentina

Animals that breed frequently, such as deer, tigers, and lions may be killed for their meat; Nuremberg zoo's deputy director, Helmut Mägdefrau, has said, "If we cannot find good homes for the animals, we kill them and use them as feed." Other animals may be sold to smaller zoos with poor conditions. PETA cites the case of Edith, a chimpanzee found in a concrete pit in a roadside zoo called the Amarillo Wildlife Refuge in Texas. She had been born in the Saint Louis Zoo, but had been sold just after her third birthday, and for the next 37 years was passed around five other facilities before landing in the roadside zoo.
It was alleged in March 2008 that hundreds of the Berlin Zoo's 23,000 animals are missing, amid allegations that they have been slaughtered, and that some tigers and leopards were sent to China to make drugs for traditional Chinese medicine. Claudia Hämmerling, a Green Party politician, said she had evidence that four Asian black bears and a hippopotamus were taken from Berlin to go to a new home, but were transported instead to Wortel in Belgium, which The Guardian reports has no zoo, but does have a slaughterhouse. The zoo's director, Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, replied that the allegations were "untruths, half-truths and lies."
• Condition of the animals
The condition of the animals varies widely, especially in zoos in countries with little or no regulations. The majority of the large non-profit and scientifically oriented institutions are working to improve their animal enclosures, although constraints like size and expense make it difficult to create ideal captive environments for some species, such as dolphins and whales.