Why people are naming bugs, rats and cats after their exes this Valentine’s Day

A snowy owl named Ghost eats a frozen rat at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center on Feb. 6, 2025, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Feel like dissing instead of kissing your former lover this Valentine’s Day? Think your ex is more like a rat than a prince? Do you believe your former paramour should never procreate?

Animal shelters and zoos around the country are encouraging little cathartic avenues for revenge this holiday — and raising money for a cause — with a slew of darkly funny fundraisers for those missed by Cupid’s arrow.

Options include naming a feral cat after your old flame before it’s neutered — or giving rodents or cockroaches your love bug’s name before feeding them to bigger animals. The Minnesota Zoo’s campaign to name a bug after either a friend or a foe has attracted donors from across the world.

Teri Scott of Poulsbo, Washington, said she was bombarded on social media with the anti-love campaigns, including naming a hissing cockroach after an ex.

She said she couldn’t bring herself to name a bug that’s so hard to get rid of after her former husband, fearing that it could be an omen she’d never shake him despite the court costs she paid.

Then she ran across a promotion for the “Love Hurts” fundraiser at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center in Anchorage, Alaska. She ponied up US$100 to name a frozen dead rat after her ex, and it will now be fed to a resident raptor at the facility.

Scott, who is celebrating her first anniversary as a newly single woman, views the donation as a gift to herself.

“You never enter a relationship thinking it’s going to end, but when it does it’s just hurtful,” she said. “I just thought, I need to do something a little bit special for myself.”

She laughed out loud when she saw the “Love Hurts” posting. “It just seemed like a beautiful way to give back,” she said.

“We do this in good fun,” said Laura Atwood, the center’s executive director. The money raised helps the facility pay salaries and care for birds — the nonprofit rehabilitated 580 of them last year. Just over $18,000 had been raised by the time the campaign closed Wednesday. So many rats — more than 130 — were purchased for the campaign, the center ran out of supplies until another batch of frozen rodents arrived Wednesday,

“People are sometimes hurt by a relationship, and this just gives them a little cathartic way to maybe work something out,” Atwood said, adding that they don’t publicize last names.

The videos of raptors like Ghost, a snowy owl that swallows the rat whole, or a peregrine falcon named Breland, which keeps one talon on the rodent and pecks away at it until it’s gone, will be emailed to donors.

There’s also a cheaper option: People can pay $10 to name a mealworm after their ex before it’s fed to a crow or a magpie, and a video will be posted on social media.

The Memphis Zoo in Tennessee gives you two options — one for your lover and the other for a nemesis, each for $10, in its “Dating or Dumping” campaign. If you’re happily coupled, you can get a digital card and a family-friendly video of a red panda eating a grape to share. But for those harboring a grudge, along with your card, you’ll get a video of an elephant pooping signed with the words “Scent with Love.”

After Valentine’s Day, the zoo will post a recap video showing the names of people memorialized in a video and will list the names that popped up the most for both daters and those earning a stinky shout-out.

“This is the most incredible thing,” said Caleigh Johnson, who is campaigning for her ex-boyfriend to be at the top of the smelly list by encouraging her friends to give to the fundraiser. “I’m hoping that a few people will come through.”

Johnson doesn’t talk to her ex anymore; instead, the video will be a treat for her friends to laugh at as they celebrate “ Galentine’s Day. ”

Mark Thiessen, The Associated Press