Chinese zoo tried to pass a golden retriever as a lion amid bear controversy
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!
A bear at Hangzhou Zoo in China went viral for being mistaken as a person in a bear costume when visitors spotted her standing on her hind legs and waving to onlookers.
When the zoo shot down claims that Angela the Malayan sun bear was actually human, many on the internet were embarrassed that they had believed the theory.
However, it might not have been so farfetched.
A resurfaced video shows that another zoo in China once tried to pass off a golden retriever as an African lion.
The Yuanjiashan Zoo in Xichang allegedly tried to convince visitors that the friendly pup was in fact a mighty lion, as shown in a clip of the apparent ruse that’s gone viral on state-run social media platform Weibo.
A man known by his surname, Tang, took his daughter to the zoo and caught the dog patiently sitting inside a cage on video, which he shared on March 27, 2021.
Tang admitted that he thought he took his child to the wrong place, but after “walking around the cage” and reading the sign on the cage, he “realized it is where the lion should be housed,” according to the South China Morning Post.
He asked a worker if the animal was an “African lion” and if it looked so different “because it hasn’t grown up yet.”
He was told that the pooch’s placement in the cage was just temporary while the lions’ enclosures were being “adjusted.” The worker also said that the lion sign was to be removed.
But Tang wasn’t convinced and alleged that the zoo was trying to pass off the sweet dog as a lion.
While he was annoyed that he paid for the ticket to the zoo, he was even more frustrated when he had to explain to his child that the doggo was not in fact a lion.
“The money for the ticket is a small deal. What matters [to] me more is that I don’t know how to explain the current situation to my kid,” Tang said in the video.
