‘Love Stinks’: Pennsylvania zoo lets you name a cockroach after your ex and feed it to a skunk
(WHTM) — If you aren’t feeling the love this Valentine’s Day, one Pennsylvania zoo is offering a different way to “celebrate.”
Intended for all members of the “broken hearts club” the Elmwood Park Zoo’s “Love Stinks” fundraiser lets you name a live cockroach after your ex and watch it get fed to a skunk.
“It’s kind of what we’re calling a ‘lonely hearts club,'” Michal Kortsarts, a marketing associate at the zoo said.
Inspired by the idea that “love stinks,” the zoo’s marketing and development teams thought of Pesto, the zoo’s 4-year-old striped skunk.
Pesto’s name is based on the word “pestoso” meaning “stinky” in Spanish. Pesto was born at the zoo, eats cockroaches, and serves as one of the zoo’s education ambassadors.
“He serves as an ambassador for his species,” Kortsarts said. “So he’ll go around to different schools, for example, through our ‘Zoo on Wheels’ program, which is where we take an animal to a school program or we just had a program at a nursing home.”
Education ambassadors like Pesto aren’t on exhibit at the zoo, but are instead used to teach the public.
“We use him as a way to teach people about his species and their conservation and why they’re important to the greater ecosystem,” Kortsarts said.
Kortsarts explained the “Loves Stinks” fundraiser, along with the zoo’s other Valentine’s Day-centric promotions go to support the zoo’s operations and program’s like the one in which Pesto is a part.
Why do we give roses on Valentine’s Day?
“One of our primary missions is to educate the public about conservation, and so we use these animals as a tool to educate about conservation because who better to discuss animal conservation than the animals themselves. And obviously we’re here as the human liaison who can help you speak to them,” Kortsarts said.
To learn more about the Elmwood Park Zoo, its education programs, or how to participate in “Love Stinks” and other Valentine’s Day promotions, you can visit the zoo’s website at www.elmwoodparkzoo.org.
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