A Danish zoo will be inviting children to watch the dissection of a lion which was put down to address a surplus at the animal park.

Odense Zoo in central Denmark has said that they are expecting a number of children to attend the dissection as it takes place during the school holidays.

This comes a year after a similar event involving a giraffe at a different zoo led to international outrage and staff receiving threats.

Educational: Odense Zoo will be holding a public dissection of a lion during the school holidays next week

'The reason we are dissecting it is that we believe there is a lot of education involved in dissecting a lion,' Michael Wallberg Sorensen, a zookeeper at the Odense Zoo, said.

The animal was put down nine months ago because the zoo had too many lions and it has since been kept in a freezer.

It will be dissected on Thursday next week, to coincide with Denmark's autumn school break, in front of a crowd that is expected to include children as well as adults.

'Although we are in contact with a lot of other zoos and try to relocate them, we can get a surplus,' Sorensen said, explaining the reason why it was put down.

The zoo has performed public dissections of lions in the past without prompting any negative reactions, he added.

Chop, chop: The lion(not pictured) was put down nine months ago and has been stored in a freezer since

Criticised: Copenhagen Zoo came under fire after it carried out a public autopsy of Marius the giraffe last year

Visitors are mostly 'really interested in it and find it interesting to see a lion that up close,' he said.

Doctor Pieter Kat, of LionAid, said: ‘European zoos continue breeding programmes for lions, with no conservation benefit. As a result, zoos end up with more animals than they can handle.’

A Copenhagen zoo prompted a storm of criticism in February last year for putting down a healthy giraffe and dissecting it in front of children.

The zoo's scientific director received death threats after Marius, a healthy 18-month-old giraffe, was put down despite numerous offers for him to be rehoused and thousands signing an online petition to save him.

After the dissection the animal's meat was fed to lions.

In Denmark, where farming is an important part of the economy, schoolchildren sometimes visit slaughterhouses on tours that include watching pigs on the slaughter line.