CHINESE ZOO HAS BARKING LION AND SEA CUCUMBER SNAKES

These Chinese zookeepers have to be either very brilliant apes or very stupid humans.

IS THIS THE WORLD’S WORST ZOO? VISITORS FURIOUS AFTER STAFF IN CHINA TRY TO PASS OFF TIBETAN MASTIFF AS A LION AND A MONGREL AS A LEOPARD
People's Park in Luohe, Henan province, has apologized and offered refund

By Becky Evans

Mail Online
August 15, 2013

A China zoo has been forced to apologize 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.'