Photo: Screenshot from Sina Weibo

After visitors reported on Sunday seeing a dog in a wolf enclosure at a wildlife park in Yichang, Central China’s Hubei Province, the park responded on Monday that the female dog had been introduced for breeding purposes, and she has to live with the male wolf for three months to establish a bond before they mate, Beijing News reported on Monday. 

According to a staff member from the Three Gorges Forest Wild Animal World, there is a male wolf kept in the wolf enclosure and the female dog, which belongs to a dog raiser, had been placed in the enclosure to breed a wolfhound. The practice was agreed by the wildlife park. Last year, the couple also successfully had offspring. 

The staff member said the female dog is housed with the wolf only during the breeding season. They have to live together for three months in advance to establish an affection bond before the breeding period. 

However, the practice still sparked controversy online. A netizen said the core of the controversy is not whether the dog and the wolf can mate, but whether such breeding should take place in an area open to the public. 

Another netizen joked that while visitors said that they came to see wolves, only to be told by the park that the wolves were “busy dating,” so visitors would have to “make do with watching a dog.”

Global Times