This is the horrific moment schoolchildren crowded around to watch as the body of a perfectly healthy giraffe was chopped up before being fed to lions.

Despite more than 20,000 people signing an online petition to save two-year-old Marius, staff at Copenhagen Zoo yesterday went ahead and shot the animal with a bolt pistol.

Young children stood at arm’s length as his carcass was skinned and dissected before the meat was thrown to the lions.