GRAPHIC CONTENT: Zoo carries out horrifying blood-soaked public dissection of lion cub

ANIMAL rights activists have reacted with anger after a Danish zoo dissected a young male lion, removing its bloodied organs in a grisly public show in front of crowds of children.

Spectators covered their faces as the stench of the decaying lion cub wafted from the dissection table.

Shockingly, the "educational" event was deliberately scheduled to take place during the annual autumn school holidays.

A lion being dissected at a Danish zoo

 Disgusting images showed the severed head of the young lion being held up to the audience, while employees take a knife to the cub's organs.

Zoo biology experts Lotte Tang Berg and Rasmus Kolind dissect a lion in the Danish town of Padborg

Children reacts to the dissection of a dead male lion

In the background, young children can be seen holding their noses.

According to Odense Zoo, the lion was killed in February along with its two siblings as the group were becoming sexually mature and zookeepers wanted to avoid inbreeding.

An employee at the enclosure said they could have killed each other because they were being kept in such close confines.

For all the kids living in towns, it's wonderful for them to see and it's only natural

Spectator

Zoo employee Lotte Tranberg, who carried out the dissection, held up the lion's blood-red organs to show the crowd while its stiff carcass lay on the table.

One grandfather who took his five-year-old grandson to watch said the youngster ended up at the front of the crowd as he was keen to watch.

"For all the kids living in towns, it's wonderful for them to see and it's only natural," another visitor said.

But animal rights campaigners have accused the zoo of denying the animal a respectful burial.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals's (PETA) associate director, Elisa Allen, said: "Are Danish zoos trying to offend everyone who has ever thought of wildlife as more than an interesting exhibit to deprive of a natural life and then a body to deprive of a respectful burial?

"Zoos are already in trouble because of dwindling attendance, as the world has woken up to who wild animals are - and the fact that they aren't targets for trophy hunters or exhibits for living museums called 'zoos'."

A dead male lion is carried to the table to be prepared for public dissection

Children reacts to the dissection of a dead male lion in Odense Zoo

She added: "The death of this lion should be a wake-up call for anyone who still harbours the illusion that zoos serve any purpose beyond incarcerating intelligent animals for profit.

"Lions rarely die of old age in captivity, and had he not been killed months ago, he would have lived out his short life as a living exhibit, stranded in a cold climate, thousands of miles away from his true home."

Odense Zoo has carried out public dissections for 20 years.

This year the zoo has killed three of its lions

It claims it made efforts to re-home the lions but was forced to euthanise them.

The remains of the two other siblings - another male and a female - are still in a zoo freezer, and officials have not decided what to do with them, Jens Odgaard Olsson, manager of the zoo, said.

Odense Zoo itself was elected 'Best in Europe' in the category of zoos with up to 500,000 visitors per year in 2013 and 2015.

In February 2014 Copenhagen Zoo faced international protests after a giraffe was killed, dissected and fed to lions in front of children.