Scrawny lion at Shanxi zoo bites its own tail off to free itself from frozen watering hole
Life often isn’t easy for big cats living in Chinese zoos
Recently, visitors to the Taiyuan Zoo in Shanxi province were shocked to see one of the zoo’s lions roaming around its small cement cage, looking malnourished and with half of its tail missing.
Footage of the scrawny king of the jungle was leaked online and netizens immediately began demanding to know what was going on. The zoo has since explained that the lion had fallen asleep with tail inside an artificial watering hole which had frozen overnight.
In order to free itself, the lion had chewed off its own tail.
The zoo added that it was feeding the lion medication for its injury. However, it failed to respond to accusations that the lion was underfed.
Over the years, a number of Chinese zoos have had to deal with accusations of mistreating their big cats with visitors horrified by cramped cages and lions and tigers that are either too scrawny or too chubby.
It seems that the only thing these animals have to look forward to is being thrown the occasional live donkey.
