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.
