A zoo in Egypt identified as Cairo International Garden Municipal Park has been sued over fooling its audience by painting on a donkey with black stripes to make it look like a zebra.
The news reached the in-charge when an Egyptian student identified as Mahmoud Sarhan uploaded the images on Facebook standing beside the ‘zebra’ after visiting the zoo.
The pictures quickly went viral on social media until they landed into the hands of those in charge. Experts weighing in on the species of the animal realized that the animal was actually fake, aside from its small size and pointy ears, there were also black smudges on its face. A veterinary expert while talking to a local news group said that a zebra’s snout is black, while its stripes are more consistent and parallel.
The student further revealed that the enclosure contained two animals and that both had been painted. When contacted by local radio station, the zoo director Mohamed Sultan denied the allegations insisting that the animal was not a fake.
However this is not the first time that a zoo in Egypt has been accused of trying to fool its audience, a zoo in Gaza painted two donkeys to look like zebras in 2009. Another Gaza zoo put stuffed animals on display in 2012 because of the shortages of animals. In 2013, a Chinese zoo in Henan province tried to pass off a Tibetan mastiff dog as an African lion.