Danish zoo quietly dissects lion and antelope without outrage

A large crowd watched a lion and African antelope dissection over the weekend

Samuel Osborne
Tuesday 19 January 2016 18:50 GMT
Comments
Staff at Odense Zoo dissected a lion in front of a live audience as well as streaming it online, October, 2015
Staff at Odense Zoo dissected a lion in front of a live audience as well as streaming it online, October, 2015

Zookeepers in Odense Zoo, Denmark, dissected a lion and an antelope over the weekend, without the international outrage surrounding a similar dissection last year.

A large crowd watched a nine-month-old lion dissected on Saturday, followed by the dissection of a sitatunga, an African antelope, on Sunday.

The animal was put down last February, along with its two sisters, because the zoo had too many big cats and did not want the siblings to breed together or fight.

In stark contrast to the zoo's dissection of another lion last October, deliberately held during local school holidays, there was little outrage or media coverage.

Nina Collatz Christensen, a zoologist at Odense Zoo, told The Local the outrage surrounding the lion's dissection in October was the exception rather than the rule.

“We have been doing this for almost 20 years, dissecting all kinds of animals,” she said.

“We think this gives our guests a different kind of education in which we show, rather than just tell, people what is inside a lion or whatever animal we choose."

She added: "We feel that it is educational and a good experience for the guests. The kids are very interested when they watch and they ask a lot of questions, so we can see that it is a very good experience for the guests."

Last year, Copenhagen Zoo killed a "surplus" young giraffe named Marius despite an online petition and international furore.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park expressed its disappointment after its offer to house Marius in its "state-of-the-art giraffe house" alongside four other males was ignored.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in