The adorable viral baby pygmy hippopotamus, Moo Deng, has brought a lot of attention and tourists to his home, the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Chonburi, Thailand.
Unfortunately, not all of these tourists are behaving decently.
Thai netizen, @patcharida_36, took to her TikTok account to showcase a Chinese tourist shooting a slingshot while at the zoo’s Tiger Valley zone.
She wrote, “This isn’t cute at all.”
In the video, the tourist could be seen aiming the slingshot and shooting it in the direction of the animals’ enclosures. This has become a huge concern to many as the shot could easily hit the animals in the enclosure.
Following this, Bangkok Post shared that the zoo has reported the tourist to the police to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
According to Khao Kheow Open Zoo’s head of security, Krittaphas Intipanya, the zoo’s director, Narongwit Chodchoy instructed for the report to be made out of concern that the tourist’s actions may lead to other incidents of animal abuse at their premises.
He added that zoo staff do carry slingshots, though it is only as a precaution to prevent free-roaming monkeys from coming too close to zoo visitors.
Additionally, letters have been sent to tour companies to urge them to warn their clients against bringing slingshots into the zoo and harming the animals, as this isn’t the first time tourists have behaved in a harmful manner towards the animals there.
You can check out @patcharida_36’s video here:
@patcharida_36
What do you think about this? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
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