Staff at a Xi'an Zoo used an ingenious device - firecrackers - to herd animals into cages because they had become used to human voices and would not respond, reports China Business News.

On Tuesday, the zoo in the capital of Shaanxi Province, formally shut down and all the inmates had to be moved to Qinling Wildlife Park in the city's southern suburb where the pollution is not as serious as downtown.

To make the lions, tigers and wolves move submissively into cages for transport, staff came up with the idea of using firecrackers.