More Bark Than Bite

As loyal readers know, in my opinion there is a clear winner in the battle of zoos versus aquariums. Other than simply finding fish more interesting, the main reason I think aquariums are just better is that you can actually see all the exotic fish. Normally if you want to see these creatures you have to fly to a random ocean location and become a certified scuba diver but at the aquarium the fish can't very well sit still, so if you stand in one place for long enough they all come to you. Plus, other than eels hiding in their coral, the fish are actually on display. On the other hand you can walk around a zoo for hours and half the animals will be sleeping in an area where you can't see them. It is like the worst game of "Where's Waldo" ever. The most camera-shy animal is ironically the one everyone wants to see - the panda. These guys never come out of their cave and yet the line to see them stretches for hours. As near as I can tell, pandas sleep for 23 hours of every day and when they are awake they are averse to the sun. But even if you can find the rest of the animals there is no guarantee they will be doing anything. Imagine if you bought a ticket to a concert and the lights came on but the band never came on stage. That is a zoo to me. Half the time I joke that I bet the zoo doesn't even have the animals they are advertising, just bought the signs and hope no one spends too much time looking in the enclosures. It sounds like a zoo in China should have tried that plan.

Officials in a Louhe city zoo really wanted to have a lion to bring the customers in because you can't be considered a real zoo without at least one lion. Unfortunately they didn't actually have a lion but, rather than let that little detail slow them down, they instead substituted a Tibetan mastiff, hoping no one would notice. Things were going well, right up to the point when the crowd gathered to hear the lion roar and instead it started barking. Once that fraud was exposed it caused zoo visitors to start looking around at all other exhibits where they noticed another domestic dog in the wolf pen and a white fox wandering the leopard enclosure. Now, part of me feels bad for the families who were duped but what did they expect when entrance into the zoo cost $14 (US)? For that money I think you are getting what you pay for. But actually my main feeling is that this is kind of karmic justice. Seriously, China's main export is knock-offs of expensive brands and they have no respect for other country's copyright laws, so can any of their citizens really be shocked when that behavior is reflected back on them? I know this isn't exactly the same as selling a Folex, but the fact it took them this long to notice says we weren't dealing with the sharpest knives in the drawer anyway. Still, maybe the zoo owner should have just bought a stuffed lion and told everyone it was sleeping since we tend to expect that to be the case anyway.