A reindeer and fawn rest in the field at the Toronto Zoo's Eurasia exhibit where, for the first time in the zoo's history, newborn calves were euthanized for being male. Two rural Ontario farmers have come forward to accept an expected male calf. (Michael Peake, Sun Media) 
Phyllis Mathison and Tony Porter are offering a home on their ranges if the Toronto Zoo's pregnant reindeer delivers a doomed male calf. 

Upset by the euthanization of two healthy baby bulls -- as revealed in yesterday's Sun -- the rural Ontarians wonder why officials didn't offer them to another zoo, seek foster human parents or sell them. 

While zoo staff and veterinarians assigned to the culling were angry, officials insisted male reindeer are hard to sell and have health issues. 

PLAYS SANTA 

Not so, insisted Porter, who has a dozen reindeer, a camel, a zebra, a kangaroo and other critters on the farm he and his wife own near Shelburne. 

"There are some impediments selling bulls, but it's not disease," he said, adding zoo bosses are wrong when they say keeping a castrated male affects antler growth. 

Porter, who uses his reindeer while playing Santa in Christmas parades, said yesterday that by killing males, the zoo risks having no animals for breeding. 

"They're not an easy animal to raise ... calves have fairly high mortality rates." 

Reindeer have been domesticated for centuries and "the option of releasing them in the wild would only doom them," he said. 

"I could have placed those two babies immediately," said Porter, who's been in touch with private reindeer owners across Canada and the U.S. "I don't need any more bulls, but I'd have taken them in." 

Mathison, a farmer's daughter who has horses and rabbits and used to have cattle on her farm at Kirkfield, near Lindsay, said: "I know how to look after baby animals." 

If another male reindeer is born at the Toronto Zoo, "I'm willing to take them in my home to look after, even if it means getting up very two hours for feeding. I'd have to talk to my vet first, of course," Mathison, 42, said. 

"It's better than having them put down," she said. 

Zoo board member Mike Del Grande, a city councillor, said he doesn't get involved in daily decisions but will ask why officials decided to destroy unwanted male calves and did not issue statements addressing public concerns. 

"Were other options explored?" he said.