Hugh: So Many Canadians Wanted to Name a Cockroach After Their Ex, the Toronto Zoo Had to End the Program

Over the past few years around Valentine’s Day, you may have seen viral marketing campaigns from zoos where people could name a cockroach after their ex in exchange for a donation. Most famously, the San Antonio Zoo would even send your former flame a card informing them of what you did. This year, the Toronto Zoo decided to hop on board and run a similar promotion. “Naming opportunities are not limited to exes – you can name a roach after your boss, ex-friend, relative, or anyone else that has been ‘bugging’ you,” Kelsey Godel of the Toronto Zoo Wildlife Conservancy said. The program appears to have begun on January 14th, one month away from Valentine’s Day, and got so much attention that they had to close the program just FIVE DAYS later. A post to the Conservancy’s Twitter account that they got a response “exceeding current capacity to fulfill all requests promptly” so the campaign had to end.

So, if you’re only hearing about this idea now, that may be disappointing, but there is still one reveal to come. The zoo plans to release a list of the names they received the most – so at some point we’ll know (by a very unscientific manner) which names make for the worst exes in Canada. Are there are front-runners? Well I’m happy I assumed you asked. Godel says they’ve received a fair number of Kyles and Jeffs.