An Arizona restaurant owner has dreamed up a unique menu offering to give customers at his Arizona restaurant a South African experience during the World Cup - burgers made from the meat of African lions. But the £14 burgers, served with chips and roast corn on the cob,  have drawn furious  protests from animal lovers, the Daily Mail writes.

Cameron Selogie says his Il Vinaio restaurant in Mesa has received a bomb threat and more than 150 e-mails from animal rights protesters. He says that the African lions on his menu are on the protected list, but not endangered.

'Because it is from a farm, the meat in no way affects the scarcity of lions in Africa," Selogie says 'We have been interacting with several of the animal activists and we committed to making a donation to the ASPCA after this, because we are animal lovers.'

Selogie claims he ensured that the lions had been humanely reared before ordering 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) of African lion meat from a USDA-regulated free-range farm in Illinois.

The lion meat is mixed with ground beef, and the restaurant says it is serving about 15 burgers a day. USDA spokesman Jim Brownlee says that lion meat is an uncommon dish, but that he knew of no prohibitions against it.

The burgers are typically served with a side of homemade fries and a roast corn on the cob. Frying up 15 of the tasty burgers at his restaurant Il Vinaio on Wednesday evening, owner and chef Cameron Seolgie even provided ice-cold water for the dozens of protesters who gathered outside in objection to the dish.

Selogie is undaunted by the protests; 'The suppliers are federally approved and lion meat is not illegal to eat or produce in America. That is what the Federal Department of Agriculture (FDA) told me. So when people call up and scream down the phone, I tell them that lions are not endangered, this meat is from farmed lions and is humane. They calm down after that.'