HUNDREDS of animals have been left to die and feast on each other after the world’s worst zoo in China was closed over coronavirus.
Harrowing footage shows hungry foxes eating the carcass of an alpaca inside a filthy cage after the animals were left alone during the two-month closure.
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Hundreds of other animals – including squirrels, rabbits and guinea pigs – starved to death when the owner struggled to look after them due to plummeting profits.
The Animal Party Themed Park in Changsha, Hunan Province of central China, had to be shut as deadly coronavirus gripped the world.
One staff member told Pear Video: “One of the alpacas literally starved to death because there wasn’t enough food stored for them.
“Animals were starting to eat each other.”
The employee said her fellow colleagues used their own cash to feed the malnourished animals but discovered they had perished when they returned to find the zoo’s owner, who hadn’t paid them since January.
The zoo manager, known by his surname Wu, claimed the animals died because “they weren’t used to the local weather”.
And he denied a lack of food was behind the mass deaths – claiming most of the animals had been transferred to a local animal farm in early February.
Any live animals will now be removed from the zoo, while management are forced to deal with the carcasses.
China was ground zero for the killer virus, which has so far killed more than 500,000 people worldwide.
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A shrimp seller at the infamous wet market in Wuhan where coronavirus is said to have started has now been revealed as one of the first infected.
Wei Guixian, 57, has spoken to the Wall Street Journal as experts continue to hunt for the mysterious patient zero who started the outbreak.
She said she started to feel sick on December 10 and visited a small local clinic believing she had a cold before returning to market to serve customers – spreading the virus to countless others.
Eight days later she was critically ill in hospital – becoming one of the first confirmed cases.
But the Chinese government did not publicly confirm the outbreak until January 9 after allowing a New Year celebration banquet in Wuhan to go ahead.
The country has now come under fire after recommending a jab containing bear bile to treat stricken coronavirus patients – a month after taking steps to permanently ban the consumption of live wild animals for food.
Tan Re Qing comes from various species of bear and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine since the eighth century, National Geographic reports.
But critics say recommending the medication goes against plans to shut down the live trade in animals.
