Zoo In China Tries To Pass Off Dog As A Wolf

Main image via AnimalWised + News.com.au
 
Zoos of course are known for housing many different types of animals but what happens if something happens to one of those animals?
 
Sometimes they take off the enclosure, sometimes they replace the animals.
 
But one zoo decided to keep its wolf enclosure and “tried to pass off a dog as a wolf”.

via GIPHY

A zoo in central China has recently been receiving a lot of attention after a video made its rounds showing the zoo’s wolf enclosure.
 
Mr Xu, a visitor to the Xiangwushan Zoo in Xianning, Hubei province, took the viral video which showed an animal in the enclosure but instead of a wolf, a Rottweiler was laying on its side in a cage.
 
The visitor uploaded the video of the dog and captioned it: “Woof! Are you a wolf?”

 

Mr Xu asked a zoo staff member about the dog in the wolf enclosure and he was told that there used to be a wolf there but it had sadly “died of old age”.
 
An employee confirmed this to local media and shared that the Rottweiler had been raised as a watchdog by the park and it was only being kept in the cage temporarily.
 
The zoo has since been told by the local forestry bureau to remove the sign that leads to the enclosure.

The video of the wolf enclosure has of course led to many jokes online but some are questioning the need of zoos in a post-Covid world. Many were concerned about the maintenance and the well-being of the animals.
 
According to Shine.cn, the zoo employee did hint that the zoo had been struggling financially, saying that it “didn’t have enough visitors to keep the zoo up and running well.”
 
This is not the first time we’ve heard about zoo’s replacing their animals.
 
Recently, a Japanese zoo replaced a hedgehog with brush because it was too cold outside.
 
Have you ever heard about zoo’s substituting their animals before? Let us know!