Copenhagen Zoo officials decided to kill a healthy two-year-old giraffe and feed it to the zoo's big cats because the animal's genes were already represented in European zoos.
The giraffe, which was named Marius, was killed by a shotgun blast on Sunday, Gawker reported via The New York Times.
Despite the best efforts of animal rights activists, the reticulated giraffe became food for the zoo's lions, tigers and leopards after it was deemed a "surplus" animal.
"A giraffe is not a pet; it's not like a dog or cat that becomes part of the family," Bengt Holst, the zoo's scientific director, told the Times by telephone. "It is a wild animal."
An online petition to save Marius garnered nearly 30,000 signatures, and officials turned down a bid of 500,000 euros, or $682,000, from someone willing to buy the giraffe.
Zoo administrators also received offers from other zoos who could have taken in the animal. The offers were turned down because sending Marius elsewhere could have caused inbreeding and likely would have filled a space needed for a giraffe with "more valuable" genes, Holst told the Times.
The director seemed taken aback by the wave of protest, which included death threats to zoo officials.
"People said, 'If you kill the giraffe, I'll kill you,' " he told the Times. "It's insane.
"We don't do it to be cruel; we do it to ensure a healthy population," Holst added. "You have to breed them to make sure the population is renewed."
The giraffe, which was 11 feet 6 inches tall, was not full-grown at the time of its death and could have reached another three feet or so, Holst said.
Marius was born in captivity and was one of seven reticulated giraffes at the Copenhagen Zoo. While not endangered, the species is threatened by habitat loss and hunting.
According to The Associated Press, the Animal Rights Sweden group has told people to stop visiting zoos as a protest to such incidents.
"It is no secret that animals are killed when there is no longer space, or if the animals don't have genes that are interesting enough," the organization said in a statement.
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