Haines’ American Bald Eagle Foundation joined zoos throughout the country offering an unorthodox Valentine’s Day tradition of naming a critter after an ex and watching it be devoured. 

Some, like the San Antonio Zoo, offer to feed roaches to animal residents. Others, like the Lehigh Valley Zoo in Pennsylvania, have offered naming fish to be fed to its resident penguins. In Haines, it’s frozen rats and your choice of eagle, owl or hawk to devour…

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...