A donkey has been painted black and white to make it look like a zebra in an International park in Egypt. This made the park come under fire after parading a donkey as a zebra to visitors, by painting it black and white.
However, a zookeeper, Mohamed Sultan, has denied painting black stripes on the donkeys to make them look like zebras, despite experts saying that they look like donkeys.
Mahmoud Sarhan, 18, took pictures of the animals during a visit last weekend and it appears that some of the stripes have rubbed off.
Mahmoud said: ‘We finished our tour then we decided to take some pictures. When we went to the zebra side, there was only one zebra.
It came to us and the other one didn’t move, but when he came near to me, I realised from the first look that it was a painted donkey, not a zebra.
A number of vets have said that they believe it is a painted donkey despite Mr. Sultan’s insistence that it isn’t a fake.
It wouldn’t be the first time that this has happened. In 2009, a zoo in Gaza reportedly painted two donkeys black and white to replace zebras that had died of starvation.
