No joke: Family feud at Beijing Wildlife Park sparks animals to fight too

If you thought you've already seen everything when it comes to public fights, you're in for a bit of surprise.

A brawl between two families at Beijing Wildlife Park last Saturday (Aug 7) had such an effect on the animals, they too followed suit with their own tussle later that night.

According to The Beijing News, a fight broke out among several visitors near the ostrich and chimpanzee enclosures that afternoon.

Two families got into a bicker which rapidly escalated into a free-for-all brawl.

A video, which went viral over the weekend, showed at least six people involved in the incident, throwing punches and kicks at each other.

[embed]https://twitter.com/manyapan/status/1424311908866351106[/embed]

Instead of helping to break up the fight, a woman carrying a child was seen kicking at another woman lying on the ground, even yanking at the latter's hair. Not quite setting a good example for the young one, it seemed.

The two families reached a settlement after mediation, the Global Times reported.

As for the animals though, they had yet to get started. The wildlife park mentioned that after witnessing the fight between humans, some animals imitated it that evening.

"The scene was out of control for a while but under the patient education of the keeper, the animals learned that fighting was not good," the park said on Weibo the following day.

While many netizens were curious which animals imitated the visitors' actions, the park did not reveal which ones exhibited the behaviour, adding that it was the first time the animals had witnessed a fight between humans.

The incident also sparked memes on Weibo, such as this upset looking tiger with the text which read "Fighting is bad, especially bad" in Chinese.

You would think more people – adults in particular – would know that too.

After watching the video of that fight between the two families, who could blame this tiger for being so down in the dumps?

ALSO READ: No joke: Cat eats owner's degree, but internet is on its side

amierul@asiaone.com