Zimbabwe Sends Park Lions to Small Zoo Cage in China VIDEO

Barely days after six lions were saved from horrendous conditions in zoos in Romania and Italy to spend their lives in a sanctuary in South Africa, Zimbabwe has given two lions captured in Hwange National Park to the Chinese to spend the rest of their lives in a small 2,000-square-metre cage in Shanghai.

Two days ago, New China TV broadcast a video of the two lions – a male of two and a female of three – that had arrived and were being donated to China by the Zimbabwean ambassador, Paul Chikwane, to celebrate 35 years of relations between the two countries. The lions will be shown to the public in a 2,000-square-metre square in the Shanghai park, it said.

“The square includes trees, pergolas, cottages and sandpits, to replicate the lions’ living conditions in Africa,” the news report said.

The news comes only a few weeks after a zoo in Tsingtao came under fire for releasing live rabbits into an enclosure with lion and tiger cubs – the two species kept together – to play with. The cubs attacked the rabbits in front of horrified spectators.

Video of the newly captured lion

Last month, a group called World Animal Protection China called for the halt to the use of captive animals for entertainment. It said that in Shanghai Wildlife Zoo, animal performances take place all day, every day, “from a welcoming party in the morning to a lion and tiger circus in the afternoon”.