(NEWSER) – A Danish radio DJ chose a controversial way of drawing attention to what he sees as the flawed debate over animal welfare: He hit a 9-week-old rabbit named Allan three times with an iron bicycle pump while on the air Monday, then wrung its neck. Later, Asger Juhl of Radio24syv ate it for dinner. Angry listeners have since called for a boycott of the station, and much worse for Juhl himself, reports the BBC. “I did it to show the hypocrisy in the debate,” he says. “Many people are outraged by what I did, at the same time many of these people will eat meat. And when they eat meat, an animal will die.” Juhl says he consulted with Aalborg Zoo on a humane way to kill rabbits and was told it used an “iron stick.” The zookeeper “hits several baby rabbits every week [to feed] the snakes,” Juhl explains, per the Local.
His employer is unapologetic. The New York Times quotes station editor-in-chief Jorgen Ramskov as saying the rabbit “was taken good care of, it had a nice life, and it was killed in a decent way.” Animals endure “horrific suffering on their way to our dinner tables … without it invoking any strong reactions or calls for boycott,” a station rep tells Sky News. Perhaps fueling the outcry on social media, per the Times: The station posted two videos on its Facebook page: a 20-second clip showing Juhl cradling and petting a very-alive Allan, and a 10-second clip showing what the station described as pieces of Allan, cooking in a pan. Those two parts are important, argued the station in a Facebook post yesterday. “We knew that we would be accused of provocation. But it is not an empty provocation; the presenters of the program ate the animal after killing it.” (It’s not the first controversial animal killing in Denmark.)