Zoo paints black stripes onto donkeys to deceive tourists into thinking they are zebras...lol (photos)

International Gardens Park in Cairo, Egypt, is currently facing backlash for painting black and white stripes onto a donkey to pass it off to visitors as a zebra.

Despite experts saying the animal being passed off as a zebra is fake and looks like a donkey, zookeeper, Mohamed Sultan denies painting black stripes onto the animal to pass it off as what it is not.

Mahmoud Sarhan, 18, took pictures of the animal 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.

People might realise that from the stripes. I sure felt shocked when people phoned me and asked me about this.

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.