First published August 4, 2018.
A zoo in Cairo’s International Garden municipal park has recently come under fire for attempting to deceive visitors by painting a donkey black and white to make it look like a zebra.
Mahmoud A. Sarhan, a Cairo student who visited the recently opened zoo, posted a picture of a strange-looking zebra. The animal had unusually long ears, while it also had some odd paint smudges on the side of its head.
The allegation was that zoo staff had painted a donkey with white as well as black stripes, trimmed all around its mane to make it look more pointy and tried to make it appear as a zebra. The hot weather made the paint smudge which was what attracted unwanted attention, according to that account; the photograph itself appeared to show smudged markings but did not independently establish the material used or how the marks arose.
Most people thought it was hilarious, but several declared themselves outraged and asked for explanations from the zoo’s management.
A striking allegation needs careful wording
Sarhan posted the photo to Facebook on July 21, 2018, and said that as an artist he recognized a donkey at first sight. He told the local outlet Extranews that the enclosure held two animals and that both had been painted. The zoo’s director, Mohamed Sultan, insisted to the radio station Nogoum FM that the animal was not fake, while a vet consulted by Extranews pointed out that a zebra’s snout is black and its stripes are more consistent and parallel. The incident was not unique: a zoo in Gaza painted two donkeys to look like zebras in 2009. Keeping the allegation, the denial and the expert comment side by side shows what is known without presenting the accusation as settled. Those allegations are different from an independently established account of who applied paint, why it was done or what the animal's circumstances were. A more careful description preserves the controversy while making the status of the claim clear.
Ask what the picture can establish
An unusual appearance is a starting point for investigation, not a complete explanation. The animal's identification, its care and the facility's response all matter more than the speed at which a joke spreads. Keeping those questions visible also prevents the welfare concern from being lost beneath an entertaining story about visitors supposedly being fooled.
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