Accused ‘zebra abuser’ identified after video shows him smacking animal at Georgia zoo

Authorities say they have identified a man seen in a social media video smacking a zebra at an animal safari in Georgia.

The Troup County Sheriff’s Office provided an update on the case Tuesday afternoon.

“Well folks after an overwhelming response to our post yesterday, the Zebra abuser has been identified by our investigators,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook. “Thank you so much for the information.”

Officials did not say if the man was in custody.

In a video shared to Snapchat, a man can be seen hitting a zebra in the face at the Pine Mountain Wild Animal Safari in west Georgia. The drive-thru zoo allows visitors to “see, touch and feed hundreds of exotic animals” from their own cars or on a guided bus tour, according to the zoo’s website.

“So apparently a recent visitor to the Pine Mountain Wild Animal Safari thought it would be funny during the tour to smack a friendly Zebra in the face after he rolled the window down and the animal put their head in the car to say hello,” the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post Monday.

There are two screenshots of the man provided in the Facebook post.

In the video, which has been taken off Youtube but is still available on Twitter and elsewhere, the man appears to be riding in the back of a vehicle stopped next to several zoo animals. He lowers the window, the zebra pokes its head in, and the man quickly smacks it on the nose, causing it to recoil out of the cabin as the man immediately rolls the window back up.

The sheriff’s office asked for the public’s help in identifying the accused animal abuser.

“Abuse of any animals from a dog to a zebra will not be tolerated and we are looking for the identity of this individual,” the sheriff’s office said.

This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 10:01 PM.