After rumours flowed today that a Chinese zoo had actually attempted to pass off a ‘man in a match’ as a sun bear since of its human-like posture, lots of were left red-faced when the zoo rejected the allegations and it ended up being clear that the animal in a suspicious-looking picture was likely a genuine sun bear.
However, the wild theory might not have actually been totally unproven, as a resurfaced video of a wildlife centre in the Sichuan province recommends.
Instead of a human being passed off as a bear, a clip from the Yuanjiashan Zoo in Xichang reveals a Golden Retriever dog which seems being passed off as a lion.
The video, which was recorded in March 2021 by a baffled daddy who had actually taken his kid to check out the African lion enclosure, reveals the pooch behind a cage.
Joking that the animal looked ‘familiar’, the daddy, whose surname was Tang, sardonically joked that he wasn’t persuaded the animal prior to him was an African lion – and questioned if it ‘had not matured’ yet.
The South China Morning Post reported at the time that Tang claimed he thought he’d taken his child to the wrong place when he came across the fluffy family breed of dog.
‘After walking around the cage, we realised it is where the lion should be housed,’ he said.
As the bewildered daddy continued filming, he spoke to a staff member at the zoo who explained the team was ‘adjusting the animals’ accommodations’ and that they had not yet got around to changing the signs on the enclosures.
Unconvinced by the explanation he was given, Tang accused the zoo of trying to pass off the domestic pet as a wild cat.
He said that, while he was annoyed to have paid for the ticket, that was a small issue compared to the task of explaining to his child that the Golden Retriever was not, in fact, a lion.
Other Chinese zoos have been accused of trying to pass off dogs dyed to look like wolves or African cats.
In 2019, two zoo workers at Yancheng Wild Animal World in Changzhou, China, were seen wearing gorilla costumes and jumping around.
Following complaints, the zoo supposedly stated that it was an April Fools’ prank.
This week, footage of Angela the sun bear at the Hangzhou Zoo in Hangzhou, in eastern China, went viral as she stood up to look at crowds and had a wrinkly bottom as she demonstrated a human-like posture.
The zoo vehemently denied the accusations that its sun bears, which are native to Malaysia, were humans wearing bear suits. A spokesperson said in an audio clip which circulated on WeChat that such deception would not happen at a state-run facility.
‘Some people think I stand like a person,’ read a separate social media post, written from the point of view of the bear. ‘It seems you don’t understand me very well.’
The bear is seen on video from the back, standing on two legs – like a person – and waving its arms around, attempting to catch food thrown in by visitors.
It then fails to catch a snack thrown in by the crowd, and resigns itself to sitting on a rock.
Internet users questioned whether the zoo’s bears were real after photos circulated showing one standing upright on slender hind legs.
‘Because of the way they stand, some people online question whether they are “humans in disguise,”‘ the newspaper Hangzhou Daily reported.
Sun bears are the size of large dogs, standing at most 1.3 meters (4ft 3″) tall on their hind legs.
Grizzlies and other species can be as tall as 2.8 metres (9ft), according to the zoo.
They are the smallest of the bear species and are native to Southeast Asia.
Sun bears have actually unique functions, such as a brief, smooth black coat, a pale yellow-colored crescent on their chests (which provides their name), and a light-colored muzzle.
