Worst zoo ever....

[laughedatbytime]

A China zoo has been forced to apologise after it tried to pass off a dog as a lion.

 

Angry visitors to the People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, complained when the 'African lion' started barking.

 

Zoo staff said they had pretended the Tibetan mastiff was a lion because they could not afford the real thing, local media reported.

 

The state-run Beijing Youth Daily claims the zoo commonly replaced exotic animals with common species.

Elsewhere in the zoo, visitors found a mongrel dog in the Timber wolf's cage and another pooch posing as a leopard in the big cat enclosure.

 

Then in the reptile house, keepers had placed two giant sea cucumbers which they were trying to pass off as snakes.

 

One customer called Liu said: ''They're cheats. I paid good money to see the lion and all I got to see was a dog.

 

'The zoo is absolutely cheating us. I took my son there so he could hear the different sounds animals made but when we reached the cage where the African lion was supposed to be, the big animal in there started barking.

 

'I paid good money for the tickets and I feel defrauded.'

 

Another mother Liu Wen was also furious.

 

She said: 'I had my young son with me so I tried to play along and told him it was a special kind of lion.

'But then the dog barked and he knew straight away what it was and that I'd lied to him.

 

'How can they tell such dreadful tales and expect to get away with it?'

 

A visitor, who did not want to be named, said: 'I don't know how they've got the nerve to try it. They must think we are all stupid.'#

 

One user of China's Twitter-like Sina Welbo service commented: 'They should at least use a husky to pretend to be a wolf.'

 

Mr Liu Suya, chief of the park's animal department, insisted the zoo did have a lion but it had been taken to a breeding facility.

 

As for the dog that was in its cage, Mr Liu said it belonged to a employee and had been put there 'for safety reasons.'

 

A spokesman for the zoo said: 'We're doing our best in tough economic times.

 

'If anyone is unhappy with our displays we will give back their money.'

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2394369/Hairy-dog-passed-Lion-China-zoo-Peoples-Park-staff-pretend-Tibetan-mastiff-African-lion.html#ixzz2cLq1QvXX

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[Ancient Ways]

Saw this on another site. Hard to know how this can happen in the Internet age where you would think most people know what a lion looks like. Edited August 18, 2013 by Ancient Ways

[Cygnus 2112]

There was a zoo I read about 3-4 years ago that painted a white horse black and called it a zebra.

[laughedatbytime]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im04kIyseEo

[Babycat]

I saw this in a newspaper - couldn't believe my eyes! :o

 

 

Anyway, thanks for the tag, LABT! :ebert:

[JohnnyBlaze]

There was a zoo I read about 3-4 years ago that painted a white horse black and called it a zebra.

Yeah, that was on the Gaza strip. They painted donkeys.

 

This zoo in China doesn't surprise me. Just seems like something that'd happen there or elsewhere in Asia.

[The Analog Grownup]

I kinda would expect them to recognize a dog when they see one - after all they eat them. Other than that it sounds a little like an Aprils fool ;)

[JohnnyBlaze]

I kinda would expect them to recognize a dog when they see one - after all they eat them. Other than that it sounds a little like an Aprils fool ;)

No, just typical stuff with people doing their own thang and nobody paying attention. A few years ago I was in this big electronics shop in rural China and the sales staff were microwaving their lunches with the microwave oven displays then eating and lounging in the massage chairs that they were also trying to sell. It was a damn mess to say the least. No local customers batted an eye at the whole thing. Things that seem f*cked up to Westerners often go easily unnoticed in the East (even dogs as lions). It's just that they didn't get away with it this time.

 

Terrible dog eating reference btw.

Edited August 19, 2013 by JohnnyBlaze

[The Analog Grownup]

I kinda would expect them to recognize a dog when they see one - after all they eat them. Other than that it sounds a little like an Aprils fool ;)

No, just typical stuff with people doing their own thang and nobody paying attention. A few years ago I was in this big electronics shop in rural China and the sales staff were microwaving their lunches with the microwave oven displays then eating and lounging in the massage chairs that they were also trying to sell. It was a damn mess to say the least. No local customers batted an eye at the whole thing. Things that seem f*cked up to Westerners often go easily unnoticed in the East (even dogs as lions). It's just that they didn't get away with it this time.

 

Terrible dog eating reference btw.

 

Yeah, the world can be upside-down sometimes. Was I wrong with the dog eating or was it just over the top?

[greyfriar]

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh597/greyfriar2112/Dog_zps7446e651.jpg