My sister is a curator at a small petting zoo. While discussing similar
problems with maintaining collections, dealing with $ issues and problems
communicating with the public, she offhandedly related this story:

Prior to her promotion to curator, the acting curator had engaged in
accepting a donation from a local resident of some bunny rabbits. The deal
fell in my sister's lap. The donor had not been apprised of the petting zoo's
standard donation form which says (and I paraphrase from memory): We have the
right to sell your donation and/or FEED it to another animal in our
collection. My question is, how can those of us in non-zoos adopt this
strategy effectively to avoid having to take things into our collection that
we cannot properly take care of :-)

- Adrienne