Italy: Ice cream cools animals in mid-heat at Rome Zoo

Meat ice cream, fish ice cream or cereal ice cream: there were flavors for all tastes Rome Zoowhose “guests” were trying to cool off in the heat of the eternal city.

The garden staff, which is adjacent to Villa Borghese, one of the most beautiful parks in the city, seems to have found the right “recipe” to give a breath of coolness in animals at a time when the thermometer was 39 degrees Celsius.

Near the park entrance, Japanese macaques enjoyed granitas of fresh fruit – plums, bananas, melons – and cereals thrown by staff directly into their pool, under the gaze of equally entertained visitors.

A little further on, Samantha and Boomer, the two owls of the park, had the opportunity to try fish ice cream while the felines were thrown into rare-inspired delicacies: meat or blood-flavored ice creams.

The coolness did not come only from the food. Sophia, an Asian elephant, took a cold shower but knows a special technique by herself: she rolls in the mud and, with her proboscis, is covered with sand and soil.

However, zoo director Yitzhak Yadid did not hide his concern about the weather. “The heat has come faster and I am a little worried about our animals, it is not easy for them, I hope it will not go like this all summer because no one can withstand record temperatures,” he told AFP. However, he assured that the animals live in good conditions, are monitored 24 hours a day and have enough shade and water.

According to the forecasts of the meteorological service, the temperature will remain high in Rome and in the coming weeks, making the distribution of ice cream non-negotiable…

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