A zoo vet carries out an autopsy on the young giraffe Sunday morning. The animal was reportedly killed by being shot. (KASPER PALSNOV/EPA)

Defiant officials at a Danish zoo defended the slaughter of a young giraffe that was hacked apart in front of small children and fed to lions.

Marius, a 2-year-old giraffe, was killed on Sunday at the Copenhagen Zoo, and then dissected by veterinarians as people in a live audience watched and asked questions.

A private donor had offered the equivalent of $680,000 to save Marius, and thousand of people signed a petition to prevent the killing. But it was all in vain.

Copenhagen said it has no choice over executing 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.”

The young male was shot with a bolt gun. The zoo chose not to use a lethal injection because that would contaminate the meat.

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SOURCE:  DOYLE MURPHY AND DAVID HARDING
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS