Fake ‘Red Alert’ on Lion Escape From Zoo Leaves Official Red Faced
Deccan ChronicleHyderabad: A fake ‘red alert’ about a lion from the Nehru Zoological Park escaping and going missing on Thursday morning with an “unofficial” but “officially sanctioned” social media handle of the zoo on X, left senior forest department officials, including the zoo curator scrambling to play down an “attempt to create some social media hype” about the zoo. In the post, the “unofficially official” handle of the zoo, @nzphyderabadzoo, issued a ‘RED ALERT HYDERABAD’ declaring that a lion went missing from the zoo in the morning and asked people to inform the police if it was spotted by anyone. Apparently, the post was part of a plan to create some “social media hype” for the zoo in the run-up to the release of a movie on a lion this week. Doing something like this with a fake news post just to grab attention is irresponsible amidst recent reports of a tiger attacking a woman killing her, and then injuring another man, coupled with reports of stray attacks on people by leopards in the state, could have been disastrous for the department,” a senior wildlife official said.
History of this topic
India issues red alert for zoos as three tigers and a leopard die of H5N1 avian influenza at a rescue centre
The Independent
Chinese zoo accused of passing off dog as lion years before ‘human-bear’ saga
The Independent
German police search for a lion suspected of being on the loose in Berlin's suburbs
The IndependentDiscover Related
44-year-old zookeeper enters lion's den to ‘impress girlfriend’, accidentally films his own death
Hindustan Times
