Panda Watch at the Beijing Zoo

10.09.13

Another week has flown by and with our day off approaching Rory and I checked the weather forecast and decided that we should spend our cloudy Tuesday at the Zoo. Naturally when we woke up the sun was splitting the heavens and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky which was a pleasant surprise!  The zoo is relatively easy to get to and at only 40RMB (£4) each it is a complete bargain. We had done quite a lot of online research and even spoken to a few people about going to the zoo and the advice we received was – don’t go. We found that complaints tended to centre around the small size of the animal enclosures and the behaviour of the Chinese visitors. Unfortunately I wasn’t surprised to hear that banging on the glass, shouting at the animals and even throwing bottles at the animals is standard behaviour. Despite hearing these terrible reviews we decided to give it a go and we were pleasantly surprised.

 

Perhaps our low expectations made everything seem better but the zoo itself was much bigger than I expected. The surroundings were also pretty impressive – the whole place was lined with trees, there were lakes, little bridges crossing canals and even botanical gardens. The first enclosure we visited was the giant Pandas and we were super lucky that one of the Pandas was up and about, chowing down on some bamboo.
 

As we progressed through the zoo we saw some more animals and in general I thought their enclosures were fine – obviously bigger is better but most seemed on par with what I’ve seen in western zoos. In general the animals could have done with more to keep them interested and engaged but I really think China just doesn’t get animal welfare. We looked around for zookeepers but the staff seemed almost nonexistent and when we did see someone they were sitting on their phones, completely unaware of what was happening around them. One thing that really surprised me was that as we passed the African Animals area we saw people petting Zebras and they were LOVING it. Well, they weren’t running away and they seemed quite content to get a little scratch. I know I shouldn’t have, but I definitely gave one a little stroke and it felt just like a horse!

Dinner - nice and fresh!

Unfortunately before we left we visited the bear enclosures. They had polar bears, black bears and brown bears. While not miniscule the enclosures did lack facilities and they were pretty depressing to look at. What’s worse is that grown men and women were teasing the bears with food and one woman had the bright idea of throwing down sweets which were still in their wrappers and which the bears obviously ate without hesitation.  She thought this was hilarious and while I couldn’t say anything to her (my Chinese is still limited to hello and thank you) I did give her some scathing looks while telling Rory in my loudest voice that they were idiots and the way they treat animals is disgusting.  It was also extremely sad to see that some said disgusting visitors had spat their chewing gum in to the enclosure and it had gotten stuck to the bear’s fur.

People teasing the bear

 

Overall we had a really nice day at the zoo. Most of the animals were in spacious enclosures, however, there were some who could have done with more room. This was a real shame as I think the zoo could have a lot of potential – if they just gave a select few animals (namely the wolves, bears and cheetahs which are all shoved to one corner of the zoo) a bit more room and a little attention they could really improve the whole experience. The zoo could also be improved with some updates and on an even more basic level, by simply cleaning the glass! Maybe then people wouldn’t need to get so close and the urge to bang on everything in sight may be lessened! Beijing Zoo isn’t going to win any prizes and PETA wouldn’t even know where to begin protesting but our extremely low expectations meant we had a nice day and we didn’t leave feeling too guilty. So if you ever make it to Beijing, maybe you should check out the zoo, maybe not! Please don’t hate me for enjoying the captivity of wild animals, I promise I do care about animal welfare! We also stopped off at a market on the way home - this time the animals weren't in cages but on sticks!

Snake on a stick!