Chinese national’s TikTok lion spotlights Cambodia’s exotic pet problem

Cambodia does not explicitly ban residents from owning non-native species, and knowledge of what animals should be protected is lacking, observers said

A week after the lion’s confiscation, Prime Minister Hun Sen reacted to sympathetic social media posts by saying the animal would be returned to its owner

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Pet lion confiscated by Cambodian police after Chinese owner shared TikTok video

Danielle Keeton-Olsenin Phnom Penh

Published: 5:00pm, 4 Jul 2021Updated: 12:28pm, 5 Jul 2021

Conservationists have warned of the growing number of exotic animals being kept as pets in Cambodia’s capital, after a 18-month-old lion was seized from a Chinese national’s Phnom Penh villa last week.

The 70kg male was removed by Forestry Administration officials on June 27 from a property in the city’s Boeng Keng Kang district – where a square metre of land can cost as much as US$5,500, according to real estate firm CBRE.

Authorities said they were alerted to the lion’s existence after seeing it appear in a TikTok video in April. Animal rescue NGO Wildlife Alliance, which helped with the raid, said its claws and canine teeth had been removed.

The lion was seized a day after Twitter user Stephen Higgins shared an aerial photograph of it roaming around its owner’s garden. It was initially taken to the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre in neighbouring Kandal province, but Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Sunday that it would be returned to its owner.

Forestry Administration Director General Keo Omaliss told This Week In Asia that his agency had never before dealt with lions, which are not native to Cambodia.

“It’s very scary to see a lion running around Phnom Penh,” he said, explaining that the animal was likely brought into the country while still a young cub because “if it’s very small … you don’t know if it’s a dog or whatever.”

The authorities work with conservation NGOs to crack down on the wildlife trade in Cambodia about once per month, Omaliss said, with birds, turtles and pigs being among the most common seizures – alongside the occasional sun bear, captured from the nation’s forests. “If we find a rare species, we react very quickly,” he said.