As summer approaches I'm trying to cross more and more off my bucket list. The Hangzhou Zoo isn't exactly at the top, but it is another place in the city I was curious about. I had heard mixed reviews: some said the animals were treated poorly, while others said it was worth the trip.
A friend of ours mentioned off hand that he went to the zoo, and that it had been newly renovated. Joanna was unsure about going, but agreed to on his recommendation. On the Labor Day holiday (May 1st), Jason (the math teacher), Joanna, and I went downtown to check out the zoo.
Overall I'd give it 2 stars out of 5. I wasn't expecting it to be great, and it certainly wasn't. I think part of the problem was that we went on a holiday. In retrospect we should have gone on a normal weekend, or better yet, a weekday. The zoo enclosures themselves were sub-par, but the main reason why I'd give it a poor review was for the other visitors.
Before I get into my rant, here are a few pictures:
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| Yes, that elephant is sticking its trunk up another elephant's butt |
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| The tiger had a relatively big enclosure |
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| But many other animals did not |
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| There was also an issue with trash...people threw in bags of chips and snacks for the animals to eat |
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| I tried to capture a photo of one visitor throwing food into the bear pit |
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| The panda enclosure, on the other hand, looked clean (and there were guards keeping an eye on the crowd) |
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| I didn't see any zookeepers...unless this guy sweeping up garbage counts |
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Visitors were allowed to feed the seals. No one was harming the animals or anything, but
it just seems strange that people were basically left unattended to mingle with them. |
Why was it a bad idea to go on May 1st? Like most Chinese tourist attractions on a holiday, the zoo was packed. It only cost about $3 to get in, so even working class Chinese could afford it. And those are the kind of people who have no respect for animals. This may seem anti-Chinese. It's not; this attitude towards animals is present in most of the developing world. Animal welfare is a new idea, even for the West. It wasn't long ago that elephants were chained up and hauled across the U.S. to perform at circuses.
Fortunately things have changed back home. And it wasn't like a circus at the Hangzhou zoo, either. Actually, some of the enclosures were spacious. But I saw many visitors throw food to the animals; at the outdoor area for chimpanzees I saw two people chuck soda bottles over the fence. I also watched a lady banging on the glass in the indoor bit of the chimp exhibit--I guess she wanted them to come closer? One responded by throwing himself at the window, and the crowd seemed pleased.
At the reptile house many people seemed fed up with the lazy snakes and lizards, so they were also tapping or banging the glass. I was already in a sour mood, and then saw a guy, about my age, chucking coins at the turtles. At that point I'd had it, and I knocked the rest of them out of his hand. Fortunately the guy just walked away; I should have kept my cool, but it was infuriating.
I don't meant to paint everyone as an animal-torturer. Only a small minority of the people were actually feeding the animals or antagonizing them. But even if it's 5%, with 5,000 visitors that means you'd have 250 idiots. One way to combat that minority would be to hire more zookeepers or security, although aside from the panda exhibit there were few and far between. Hopefully things will improve; I'm sure they already have from 5 or 10 years ago.
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| The bear enclosure at the zoo in Bukit Tinggi |
So at the end of the day, there are plenty of worse zoos. I'm sure that's true of many smaller cities in China, and across the developing world generally. I just heard a story of a zoo on the outskirts of Shanghai where share holders (who had invested in the zoo) stole a donkey and put it into the tiger enclosure. Apparently they wanted to sell it, and then when guards stopped them from taking it out they figured, better to use it as animal feed to save money (if you really want to know,
here is the article).
I've also seen much worse. In the town of Bukit Tinggi, Indonesia, I visited a "zoo" where some of the animals were literally in cages, and even the larger enclosures looked like prison. Things are slowly getting better, but in the meantime my best bet is probably just to avoid those zoos altogether.
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