Chinese zoo under fire for disguising hairy dog as lion

Beijing: A Chinese zoo’s supposed “African lion” was exposed as a fraud when the dog used as a substitute started barking.

The zoo in the People’s Park of Luohe, in the central province of Henan, replaced exotic exhibits with common species, according to the state-run Beijing Youth Daily.

It quoted a customer surnamed Liu who wanted to show her son the different sounds animals made — but he pointed out that the animal in the cage labelled “African lion” was barking.

The beast was in fact a Tibetan mastiff — a large and long-haired breed of dog.

“The zoo is absolutely cheating us,” the paper quoted Liu, who was charged 15 yuan (Dh8.92) for the ticket, as saying. “They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions.”

Three other species housed incorrectly included two coypu rodents in a snake’s cage, a white fox in a leopard’s den, and another dog in a wolf pen.

The chief of the park’s animal department, Liu Suya, told the paper that while it does have a lion, it had been taken to a breeding facility and the dog — which belonged to an employee — had been temporarily housed in the zoo over safety concerns.

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This thread is not meant to offend any Chinese, just for some fun ,, but this is just Hilarious

A similar thread is already out there.. but this story is a joke anyway. Sensationalism.

Haha, now that is funny. Maybe they could have gotten away with it if the lion did not bark!
I wonder how they thought they could get away with this? Reason is "Hard economic times?" But don't they have all of our money?

There is a certain innocence I find charming about this story.

There was a charming comment on a news article about this

I went to a zoo once that only had one dog in it. It was a shih tzu.

Apparently these guys creativity didn't just stop at the lion.
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