Updated 6.42 p.m. Caution - Images may disturb

Officials at Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark say they received death threats after the zoo killed a two-year-old giraffe and fed its remains to lions.

Zoo spokesman Tobias Stenbaek Bro said that he and the zoo's scientific director, Bengt Holst, received several threats over the telephone and in emails. They quoted one email as saying: "The children of the staff of Copenhagen Zoo should all be killed or should get cancer."

The giraffe, Marius, was killed yesterday using a bolt pistol, then skinned and fed to lions in front of visitors, including children.

The killing triggered a wave of online protests and debate about zoo conditions.

The zoo said it killed Marius to prevent inbreeding, and it defended the public feeding as a display of scientific knowledge about animals.

Protests were held outside the zoo after it ignored a storm of criticism from animal rights activists and went ahead with its plan to kill and butcher the  healthy giraffe.

A British zoo had offered to give Marius a home, and even started an online petition to save the giraffe. It gathered more than 25,000 signatures, but that wasn't enough to save him.