By Liu Meng
A report has been released by nine university students who spent their winter holidays participating in the Chinese Zoo Observation (CZO) program, with the goal of investigating animal welfare in zoos after a new governmental policy on the matter was released in October.
The report reflects the policy's poor implementation and the overall shoddy living conditions of animals at 21 zoos in nine provinces and municipalities where the policy was introduced. CZO was sponsored by Lives Protection Society, a Beijing-based animal-protection non-governmental organization (NGO).
Worrying incidents
The project came into being after two high-profile cases of endangered animals dying in captivity last year sparked the public's interest in the living conditions of animals at zoos.
Last March, 11 Siberian tigers in Shenyang Forest Wild Zoo, Liaoning Province, along with 30 other animals, died of hunger over three months. In July, a panda in Jinan Zoo, Shandong Province died of respiratory failure after breathing toxic gas, reported the China News Service (CNS). According to the latest statistics from Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens (CAZG), there are at least 200 zoos in China, an oversupply that has led to many zoos training animals to hold circus-like performances in order to draw crowds.
Responding to the outcry, in October 2010, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development released a notice requiring all zoos to stop all forms of animal performance, close all wild-animal restaurants in zoos and stop illegally selling wild-animal products.
Cruel realities
The students' investigation into animal welfare at zoos included their health conditions, living environments and visitors' attitudes toward the animals. According to the investigation, many animals are commonly seen to be unhealthy and hungry.
A monkey in a zoo in Qingdao, Shandong Province was observed by Sun Caizhen, a volunteer from Beijing Normal University (BNU), to be sitting against a hot plate, continuously gnawing its fur and knocking at the hot plate. Half of its back was bald and showed visible injuries, according to Sun.
Liu Xiaoyu, a volunteer from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention, reported that the tusks of an elephant at the Xinjiang Tianshan Wild Animal Park, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, had been cut off, its spirits were low and it performed a number of unhealthy repetitive motions. "Many of these repetitive behaviors are caused by its limited living space, as though it was living in a prison," Liu said.
Sun also found that in some zoos, carnivores and herbivores are put in adjacent cages. In Weifang Zoo, Shandong Province, monkeys are kept in a cage next to a leopard. "They are natural enemies. Such an arrangement would greatly damage the psychological health of the animals," she told the Global Times.
Student investigators also found that among the 21 zoos, only the hippopotamus section at Chengdu Zoo, Sichuan Province, has any trained staff on hand to guide visitors in feeding animals, while all the other zoos are woefully under-equipped in regulating visitor behavior.
Luo Tian, a volunteer from BNU, reported that in other sections of Chengdu Zoo, visitors were indiscriminately giving food to the animals, and an elephant was seen to have eaten a pie along with its plastic package. A monkey in Nanchang Zoo, Jiangxi Province also mistook a plastic bag for food and ate it.
"Animals can't usually control themselves when it comes to eating – unhealthy foods and overeating in general can make them sick," Sun said.
Only nine of the 21 zoos have officially agreed to cancel their animal performance programs, according to the investigation, despite the fact that many volunteers found that most performing animals are underweight and have obvious injuries.
Li Qiuyan, a volunteer from BNU, personally saw an animal trainer using a bamboo whip to beat a tiger during a training session at Guilin Zoo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He told the Global Times that in Nanning Zoo, Guangxi, black bears are forced to perform standing on their heads on a tightrope without any security apparatus.
No easy solutions
Mang Ping, a member of Lives Protection Society and a professor at the Central Institute of Socialism, said that poor regulation has led to a proliferation of low-quality "performance" zoos across the country. "We find that zoos usually put entertainment and profit first. When the animal trainers are torturing the animals in front of a young audience during the performance and when the visitors are feeding animals randomly, the zoos' value in educating children about animal welfare is lost," she told the Global Times.
Chen Shikong, a volunteer from the Beijing Film Academy, told the Global Times that during her investigation of four zoos in Hebei Province, an employee at Baoding Zoo said that the annual ticket income of the zoo is 100,000 yuan ($15,310), and that the money available to both pay workers and buy animal food is less than 10,000 yuan ($1,530) per month. "Why not link these four zoos, each one with their resources stretched, in order to optimize resources and ensure animal welfare?" Chen said.
Professor Mang contrasted the situation China with that of other countries. She said that Marwell Wildlife, a zoo in Britain, no longer keeps sensitive species like elephants and gorillas, instead showcasing them to visitors via video, while the Singapore Zoo forbids visitors from taking photos with animals.
"I hope to see a similar progress from entertainment to education and protection in China's zoos," Liu Nonglin, a general engineer at CAZG told the Global Times.
Liu added that the problems with zoos in China stem from an overall permissive attitude among authorities that sees new regulations ignored as soon as they're implemented. "This is a long-term problem that won't be fixed overnight," he said.