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Two gay lions are controlled by "demonic forces" and must have been influenced by human behaviour, a Kenyan official has insisted.

Ezekial Mutua, chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board, said the lions should be "isolated" for biological study and counselling due to their "bizarre behaviour".

The animals were pictured after one mounted the other in the bushes of the Masai Mara game reserve in the south-west of the African country.

Mr Mutua, known as the "moral policeman" in Kenya, was shocked to hear the news, which he called a "phenomenon".

He insisted that the two gay lions must have been influenced by human behaviour.

He spoke after he saw images of the rare display captured by wildlife photographer Paul Goldstein.

Mr Mutua told Nairobi News: "It is a bizarre phenomenon.

"I wish I could get the bio to confirm that these are two male lions because this is not normal. The very nature of intimacy is male and female.

"It's interesting for scientific discoveries, some research needs to be done.

"They should be isolated, ideally," he said.

He went on to claim that the male lions may have learnt the behaviour after watching a same-sex human couple.

"We have normalised abnormal behaviour to the point where even animals are helping," he said. "They must have appropriated it somewhere."

He added: “These animals need counselling, because probably they have been influenced by gays who have gone to the national parks and behaved badly. I don’t know, they must have copied it somewhere or it is demonic.”

Mr Mutua is known in Kenya for his controversial and often anti-LGBT public opinions. He has previously banned "pro-gay" movies and cartoons.

The Kenya Film boss warned that "demonic forces are breeding across Kenya" and said that evil spirits caused homosexuality.

He suggested that the lions may have been possessed by the same force.

He said: “The demonic spirits inflicting in humans seems to have now caught up with animals.”

Some biologists claim homosexual behaviour has been observed in more than 1,500 species, and reliably recorded in a third of these cases.