Students kicked off Facebook for eating a cat

A group of Danish students have been kicked off Facebook for cooking and eating a cat.

The students, from the Danish School of Journalism in Aarhus, posted 30 pictures of themselves cooking and eating the animal, reports the Copenhagen Post.

But their protest, aimed at drawing attention to the way pigs and cattle are raised for meat, was slammed by the animal rights lobby.

The students say the cat was feral and had been shot by a farmer trying to control the number of cats on his land. They say it was killed humanely and prepared by a professional chef.

They said they were surprised by people's reactions and were 'disappointed' their Facebook profile was no longer accessible.

"We wanted people to think about what it was they were putting in their mouths," said Laura Bøge Mortensen, group member and the editor of a student magazine that carried an article about the meal.

"It's hypocritical for us to spend thousands on our pets, yet buy the cheapest pork from Netto that comes from pigs that have lived a horrid life. And just why is it that it's worse to eat a cat than a pig?"
But she admitted the group struggled to overcome reservations about eating an animal normally treated as a pet.
"We had to count to three before we sat down to eat, and I wouldn't really say that we stuffed our face. Everyone did take a bite though," she said, before revealing the taste was "a little like chicken, with an aftertaste of fur".

But Ole Münster, director of Denmark's version of the RSPCA, said: "This is the worst way to draw people's attention to animal welfare. The choice of a cat was an especially bad one, since we get most of our calls about them."