{"id":2615,"date":"2025-07-17T11:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T11:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/2615\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T11:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T11:13:07","slug":"restaurant-in-china-criticised-for-putting-baby-lion-cuddles-on-menu-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/2615\/","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant in China criticised for putting baby lion cuddles on menu | China"},"content":{"rendered":"

A restaurant in northern China<\/a> has been criticised by animal welfare groups for offering an unusual item on the menu: lion cub cuddles.<\/p>\n

According to a screenshot of a menu circulating on social media, Wanhui \u2013 a restaurant in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province \u2013 has a four-course set afternoon menu costing 1,192 yuan ($166\/\u00a3124) that includes playtime with the in-house animals.<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s profile on Dazhong Dianping, a popular restaurant listings app, shows pictures of the lion cubs alongside other animals, such as deer and alligators.<\/p>\n

The menu on the Dianping page does not include lions in its list of animals but says customers can play with llamas, turtles and meerkats.<\/p>\n

Several photos show customers snuggling the baby lions.<\/p>\n

In one review posted this month, a customer sits with a lion cub on her lap, holding the its paw to wave to the camera.<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s review reads: \u201cI can pet a cute little lion in a small shop! \ud83e\udd81 It\u2019s called Simba, and looks so good. There are staff to guide you, so you don\u2019t have to worry about safety issues!\u201d<\/p>\n

While some influencers have jumped at the chance to post eye-catching photographs on social media, the reaction of Chinese people online has been mostly negative. \u201cThey\u2019re putting profit above consumer safety \u2013 it\u2019s way too dangerous,\u201d wrote one Weibo user.<\/p>\n

Chinese media reported that the Shanxi forestry and grasslands bureau was investigating the matter, adding that this kind of human-animal contact was prohibited.<\/p>\n

Peter Li, a China policy expert for Humane World for Animals<\/a>, told Reuters: \u201cExploiting wild animals for selfies and marketing gimmicks is not only appallingly bad animal welfare, it\u2019s also potentially risky for customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not the first exotic animal welfare scandal in China. Last month, tourists visiting a zoo in Liaoning, in the north-east, were condemned for reaching through a metal grate to pull tufts of hair off a tiger<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A hotel in Chongqing, a city in south-west China, recently attracted scorn for offering a \u201cwake-up service\u201d delivered by red pandas<\/a>, which could climb into guests\u2019 beds.<\/p>\n

Contact between humans and exotic animals has also been highlighted by experts as a potential risk for the spread of zoonotic diseases, such as Covid-19.<\/p>\n

Staff at Wanhui repeatedly hung up the phone when called by the Guardian.<\/p>\n

According to Reuters, the restaurant said the lion cubs were well cared for by specialist staff.<\/p>\n

Additional research by Lillian Yang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A restaurant in northern China has been criticised by animal welfare groups for offering an unusual item on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-2615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}