Marius the reticulated giraffe died at the Copenhagen Zoo on Sunday. He was 2 years old.

The cause of death was a shotgun blast, and after a public autopsy, the animal, who was 11 feet 6 inches, was fed to the zoo’s lions and other big cats.

Administrators said they had decided to kill Marius, who was in good health, because his genes were well represented among the captive giraffe population in European zoos. But that explanation did not satisfy animal rights activists who had mounted a furious last-minute campaign to save him.

Besides nearly 30,000 online signatures from those who did not want Marius killed, Copenhagen Zoo officials received death threats after they turned down adoption offers from other zoos, as well as a bid of 500,000 euros, or $682,000, from an individual who was willing to take Marius in.

One group, Animal Rights Sweden, urged people to stop visiting zoos as a protest, The Associated Press reported. “It is no secret that animals are killed when there is no longer space, or if the animals don’t have genes that are interesting enough,” the organization said in a statement.