> London Zoo penguins were fed “slivers of cat meat dipped in cod-liver oil.”

I'm fairly sure this is a mistake and is supposed to be "cat's meat"- in other words, cheap poor-quality meat sold as cat food, rather than the flesh of cats!

AFAIK the only London Zoo animals that were killed at the start of the war were the venomous/dangerous ones, because of the risk that they would escape if their cages were damaged by bombing.

(I thought it was just the venomous ones, so was a bit surprised about the tiger)

The zoo raised rabbits and guinea pigs to feed to the carnivorous animals.

These days. At the beginning of the Ukraine war people around the world were buying tickets to the closed zoo in Mikolaev to support the animals during that chaotic period

https://blooloop.com/animals/news/mykolaiv-zoo-ukraine-selli...

When Russia destroyed Khakhovka dam a small zoo in a near by city was immediately completely drown.

Retreating from Kherson Russians stole raccoon from the zoo there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon_of_Kherson