The People’s Park of Luohe has a completely reasonable explanation for why the animal inside its lion cage was actually a Tibetan mastiff, a very lion-y-looking breed of dog, as zoo-goers noticed recently when the lion barked:
The chief of the park’s animal department, Liu Suya, was quoted by the Beijing Youth Daily as saying the lion had been taken to a breeding facility and the Tibetan mastiff temporarily placed in its cage because of safety concerns.
Don’t ask any follow-up questions about what kind of safety concerns were addressed when a large dog was placed in the lion’s cage. Just accept that it was safety concerns. And that this was a totally innocent mistake.
Other species were also apparently mislabelled; there was a white fox in a leopard’s den and another dog being passed off as a wolf.
Also because of safety! This is all for safety, you guys. It’s almost like you have no concerns at all about safety.
