UPDATED/See photos taken at illegal Caqnu zoo yesterday, showing lions mauling a donkey

A reader has sent in these photographs, telling me that she was at the illegal zoo yesterday at around the time that small boy was mauled by a tiger out on a leash.

She said that just before the incident happened, she had seen lions mauling a donkey (pictured). The lions and the donkey were in separate cages, but the cages are separated only by bars through which the lions can reach and grab their prey, as they have done here.

“My young son witnessed this and was traumatised,” she told me. “Children are not properly protected either. You can see what the bars are like. There is just some flimsy Perspex on the passage side to stop people getting their hands through, but the Perspex ends before the bars do. The pumas’ cage has no safety barrier for people. They just put chicken-wire and a notice not to put your fingers through, but children can still put their fingers through the wire.”

This is not just about the danger to people, though. These photographs show clearly the cruel and appalling conditions in which the animals are kept. Please will visitors to the illegal zoo take photographs of anything else they notice and send them in. Don’t just accept this situation.

UPDATE/The zoo’s management issued a statement this morning saying that the zoo has been closed, though it is not clear whether this was done voluntarily or on police orders. NGOs have also released a damning statement about the government’s failure to act on the illegal Montekristo estate, and how politicians hold events there instead.