Danish radio presenter: I killed a rabbit live on air to 'expose people's hypocrisy'

Asger Juhl was taking part in a debate on animal welfare when he killed a nine-week-old rabbit with a bicycle pump

Danish presenter Asger Juh (YouTube)

Last month, Asger Juhl courted controversy after he killed a rabbit live on Danish radio.

Since the broadcast, a petition was set up for the Danish radio host to lose his job, he received handwritten hate mail and online abuse from all over the world.

But Mr Juhl has now spoken out as to why he decided to kill the nine-week-old rabbit, named Allan, who he later went on to eat.

“We wanted to expose people’s hypocrisy in relation to animals,” Mr Juhl told Reuters.

Allan the rabbit was killed live on air (Radio24syv, Denmark/Facebook)

“Either we stand by the fact that we kill and eat animal or we take the consequence of what we feel and become vegetarians.”

When has was asked why he killed a rabbit to prove a point, Mr Asger said that he had not wanted to lie on air about killing the animal and would not have provoked as strong a reaction had he merely talked about killing it.

He added that listeners were able to turn off the radio and that “from the rabbit’s perspective, it doesn’t make a difference,” where it was killed.

A Radio24syv presenter, Mr Juhl was hosting a live debate on animal welfare when he reportedly hit the nine-week-old rabbit in the middle of a live debate, despite protestations from his guest Linse Kesser, an animal rights advocate.

Local media was quick to draw comparisons to the controversial killing of Marius the giraffe at a zoo in Copenhagen.

A statement issued by the radio station, at the time, said: “We ensured that we killed the rabbit in a sound manner, in accordance with very precise instructions that were given to us by a zookeeper – so the rabbit did not suffer any harm.”