Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor:  Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report

AsiaWire

This is the moment a group of tourists and their children find a dead deer collapsed inside a crowded zoo enclosure where other animals appear thin and malnourished.

Footage taken inside Wuxi Zoo, which is in East China’s Jiangsu Province, showed a herd of moulting sika deer (Cervus nippon) pressed up against the fence while appearing to be looking for food yesterday (25th March).

One of the specimens, which are also known as spotted deer or Japanese deer, collapsed on the ground and motionless, the video shows.

Other sika deer inside the enclosure live around the carcass, which was apparently left on the ground for several hours.

Shocked visitors comment on the apparent deceased deer, saying: “The deer is dead. It’s already dead but nobody is doing anything.

“It’s dead. Why isn’t anybody doing anything?”

The tourists’ children can be heard asking about the “sorry” state of the “hungry” deer, which appear to be constantly searching for food despite reportedly having been given hay in their enclosure.

A Wuxi Zoo spokesman confirmed to local media today that one of its deer had died, but vets have yet to determine what caused the unexpected death.

He said: “Yes, one of our sika deer died in the captive-breeding enclosure.

“It’s likely that it wasn’t discovered right away when it died.

“We would’ve noticed if it had some sort of disease.

“Initial necropsy results point to a problem in the heart. We believe it died of a heart-related issue.”

Sika deer are a Class I state-protected species in China.

Theyr hunting and the selling of any related products is strictly prohibited.

The spokesman did not comment on the general health of the spotted deer herd.

Social media user ‘Liudasha’ wrote: “There is hay, but they aren’t eating it. Maybe it died of some disease.

“Zuibijian Buguode Ganqing’ added: “You lock the deer in an enclosure and then don’t care when they die.”

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