A zoo in Copenhagen killed a 2-year-old giraffe with a bolt gun to the head and then dissected by vets in front of a live audience. It was then hacked apart and then fed to the lions.
Copenhangen said it needed to execute the giraffe because of European rules over in-breeding.
“Our giraffes are part of an international breeding program, which has a purpose of ensuring a sound and healthy population of giraffes,” Bengt Holst, scientific director at Copenhagen Zoo, told CNN. “It can only be done by matching the genetic composition of the various animals with the available space. … When giraffes breed as well as they do now, then you will inevitably run into so-called surplus problems now and then.”