By Tim Binnall
In a bizarre story out of Armenia, a zoo was forced to correct the record after a prankster painted a donkey to look like a zebra and claimed the creature had escaped from their facility. According to a local media report, the "extraordinary incident" occurred this past Friday morning when what seemed to be a zebra was seen wandering down a main road in the county's capital city of Yerevan. The outlet indicated that the animal had somehow fled the city's zoo and that local authorities were working on wrangling the creature so it could be brought home. Later that day, however, the already odd story took a rather strange turn when the zoo issued a statement strongly contradicting the earlier report.
Reaching out to the media outlet that covered the 'great escape,' the Yerevan Zoo declared "the news story this morning was nothing more than a failed joke," revealing that the zebra was actually an unfortunate imposter. Specifically, the facility said, the creature was a donkey that had been adorned with stripes by its mischievous owner, "whose identity is now being determined by law enforcement." The zoo subsequently assured the public that the zebras at their facility were all "safe and in their free enclosure." While it's uncertain what became of the faux zebra, one hopes that someone scrubbed those stripes away now that is fifteen minutes of fame are over.