Punters visiting The People’s Park of Luohe Zoo in Henan, China were left bemused when a so-called “African Dog Lion” began to bark at them but looking at the beast – actually a Tibetan Mastiff – you’d have to be barking mad to be fooled by the dodgy cage labelling in the first place!
Agence France-Presse (internationally) broke the news about the ridiculous Zoo’s attempts to trick visitors into believing they were seeing exotic wildlife, when in fact they were actually looking at far more ordinary critters. As well as the barking “dog lion” farce, also has a fox parading in the Leopard’s den and another dog in a wolf’s enclosure.
A Zoo administrator reportedly told The South China Morning Post: “The Wolves are there…but the wolf is somewhere else in the pen and the dog is a pet. The African lions will be back. They went to another Zoo to breed.”
Sharon Liu, a visitor who had taken her six-year-old son to the zoo, was alarmed to hear barking coming from inside the lion’s cage. “To use a dog to impersonate a lion is definitely an insult to tourists,” she said. The head of the “Zoo” Yu Hua blamed private contractors for the feral forgeries (surprise surprise) and said that the signs will be “promptly corrected”.
Tourists are warned about the risk of picking up counterfeit goods, such as bags, electronics (inc. fake exploding iPhones) whilst travelling to China, but fake animals?? That’s just taking the doggy biscuit!!!
