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

Anger erupts: Marius, the two-year-old giraffe, was shot with a bolt gun and his carcass was fed to the other animals in the zoo. Protesters staged an agitation and sent threatening e-mails to the staff at the zoo for euthanising Marius. Pics/AFP

Zoo spokesman Tobias Stenbaek Bro said yesterday that he and the zoo’s scientific director, Bengt Holst, received several threats over the telephone and in e-mails. They quoted one e-mail as saying: “The children of the staff of Copenhagen Zoo should all be killed or get cancer.”