The zoo’s supposed “African lion” was exposed as a fraud when the dog used as a substitute started barking.A customer surnamed Liu who wanted to show her son the different sounds animals made pointed out that the animal in the cage labelled “African lion” was barking.
The paper says the zoo has been replacing exotic species with substitutes, including placing two rodents in a snake’s cage, a white fox in a leopard’s den and a common dog in a wolf’s pen.
“The zoo is absolutely cheating us,” said one visitor. “They are trying to disguise the dogs as lions.”
Liu and other zoo visitors reportedly paid 15 yuan ($2.45) for the chance to see the dog and other substitute animals up close.
This is not the only case of animal impersonation in China. A recent reports of Chinese zoo officials claims that the are some instances of painting dogs black and white to make them look like pandas.
Liu Suya, chief of the zoo’s animal department, explained that the actual lion has been temporarily sent to a breeding facility.
''The wolf is somewhere else in the pen and the dog is a pet,” another zoo official said, adding that the African lions will be back and just transferred to another zoo to breed.
