Health Inspector Finds Lion In Restaurant Freezer

Health inspectors must come across odd discoveries all the time, but few can top the U.K. health inspector who says he once found a whole, dead lion in a restaurant's freezer.

According to Jezebel, health protection manager Ian Brightmore won't say where exactly he encountered the frozen lion, but he says he found the dead lion wedged into the freezer next to food that would be served to the restaurant's customers. The restaurant's owner claimed he'd been given the lion by a nearby zoo and intended to feed it to his pack of dogs. Most veterinarians would probably raise an eyebrow at the idea of throwing a whole lion corpse to one's dogs.

"The food establishment was near a zoo and the owner kept pack hounds so it was food for them," Brightmore told The Daily Mirror. "Because the lion was kept in a place where food for human consumption was stored, of course we had to take action."

Brightmore said that because the dead lion in the freezer was the only health code violation he encountered at that particular restaurant, the restaurateur was told to get the lion out of the freezer, but otherwise it was allowed to continue operating as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.