What to do with the old Christmas tree? Bin it? Burn it? Try, and fail, to replant it? If you happen to live in Cambridgeshire you now have another option: you can throw it to the lions. Local families and nurseries have donated their unwanted trees to Linton Zoological Gardens, where they are being used as fuel in the bio-burners, replanted in the snowy owl enclosure, and given to the lions as toys.

Pleasure and pine … Photograph: Linton Zoo

According to the zoo’s director Kim Simmons, real Christmas trees are “like catnip” to big cats. They also, rather pleasingly, make the lions look toddlers who are refusing to accept Christmas is over. As you can see...