KZBlog

An old story that I never got around to posting about:

Apparently a circus owner from Kostanai came to Karaganda to buy a lion for his circus. That’s not unusual; there’s a zoo in Karaganda. He picked him up in a Gazelle, which is a big moving van style truck. And the lion was locked in a cage in the back of the Gazelle. It’s kind of funny to find a lion inside a gazelle instead of the other way around, but that’s still not newsworthy. The circus owner came home with the lion late, which is also not interesting. Karaganda is a good drive away from Kostanai, so it might be expected that the driver wouldn’t be able to do it all in one day and get home for dinner time. Now dear reader, take a minute and think what you would do in this situation. You have a lion in the back of your truck and you come home late at night. Would you park the truck, leaving the lion in the back, and just go home?. Because that’s what happened. The lion was discovered the next day by another car owner who alerted the police. It is unclear whether the owner of the parking lot will be charged for the extra security.

Interestingly, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior said, “The cage containing the predator was locked, and the lion was calm,” and there is no indication that the circus owner will face any kind of punishment. So I guess it’s not illegal to leave wild animals out all night unmonitored.