“I think its a good thing because when it is feeding time, and they call this name, then it isn’t good to hear the call Putin,” visitor Lothar Hubar said about an animal park’s decision to change the name of one of its boars from Putin to Eberhofer.
Waldhaus Mehlmesiel Wildlife Park in Bavaria held a ceremony on Tuesday to rechristen their pig Putin with a traditional southern German name because of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Eckard Mickish, operator of the park, said he named the boar after Russian President Vladimir Putin three years ago when he arrived because he is a Russian wild boar. The hog weighs around three times more than those typically found in Germany; his weight is around 200 kilograms (440 pounds).
The Animal Reader is a small independent animal news platform based in the Netherlands.
But lately, whenever Mickish called Putin in front of visitors, they felt uncomfortable. It also worried him what Ukrainian visitors would feel hearing the name of the Russian president.
Mickish turned to social media to look for a new name. Of 2700 name proposals, Eberhofer, the name of a policeman from a popular Bavarian book series, got the most votes.
