Danish zoo dissects lion cub before crowd of schoolchildren

So it’s not unusual, at least for a Danish zoo, to do this and I think also in Sweden it’s very normal to show dead animals and what’s inside.

The Odense Zoo’s controversial decision to publicly dissect the animal only metres away from children has caused both outrage and messages of support on social media.

“Of course we do everything we can to avoid putting down animals, and we tried shipping the lion off to other zoos”, Michael Wallberg Soerensen, a zoologist at Odense Zoo, was cited as saying. It was kept in deep freeze for just the right moment.

The zoo in Odense has done public dissections for 20 years.

Earlier this year, Odense zoo dissected a camel, pony and tapir (a creature that looks like a pig with a trunk), without sparking controversy, but Thursday’s dissection was a different matter. He then chopped off the head, held it up for everyone to see, and then proceeded to skin it. Spectators cover their noses to ward off the pungent smell as they watch the dissection. He then cut off the lion’s head, according to AFP.

A Copenhagen zoo prompted a storm of criticism in February past year, and its scientific director received death threats, for putting down a healthy giraffe and cutting it up in public.

Zoo guide Lotte Tranberg told the assembled crowd the lion had been killed several months ago because it had reached sexual maturity and officials were concerned about potential inbreeding.

As for why the lion was killed in the first place, it in part comes down to a matter of healthy population management. “It can only be done by matching the genetic composition of the various animals with the available space….”

The Danish bestiality bill passed after lawmakers expressed concern that Denmark, as one of the last nations in Europe where sex with animals was still legal, was attracting a host of animal sex tourists who came to the country just to fornicate with the furry set. The zoo noted that the animals were becoming sexually active; there were concerns about inbreeding.

She added in the statement the institutions had an ethical responsibility and could use contraceptive options to manage reproduction, instead of culling the animals.

“It is mystifying to us why people who are objecting to this were not objecting to it when the animal was killed”, Williams-Mitchell said.

“Many Danes feel this experience gives their children the true insight to help them make their own choices in the future”.