What an auspicious date, maybe that’s why I slept in – not sure whether to rest and have a day about the hotel.
Panda’s – they are an odd animal and as the zoo is literally ten minutes away by taxi I might as well go and see. As far as the weather, it’s smoggy again with low cloud and visibility a couple of hundred metres.
I will say that when you buy a ticket for any visit, whether it be Shanghai, Beijing or out by the wall, you get a real souvenir, a picture of an image of the site with multiple tear of stubs dependent whether the ticket gives you multiple access to different facilities on the site.
Somehow the zoo was exactly as I imagined with dated enclosures, run down and generally in poor upkeep. The panda house has seen better days, rusty railings, green algae glass, cracked tiles and paving but still commanding an endless stream of visitors.
Choo Choo, Me Me, Ling Ling and Fur Fur; (I don’t know their names but it sounded like Panda names) are either in the panda house quarters in their own space, or outside in their own enclosure. They are not normally social animals, apart from the breeding season, hence when they are all segregated. Obviously two in two out and then change over. Those inside like sleeping and those out like eating.
The little line of, I guess kindergarten kids, are all so excited when they see the animals and to support their enthusiasm there are two shops selling soft cuddly pandas, one at the entrance and one at the exit – take your pick. Those outside are happily chomping on their bamboo shoots that we passed through the bars to them. Hence why they stay just by the door of the enclosure so that they can get easy access to the food. It’s not a pleasant experience this as all the other animals are caged with some enclosures. The deer, and there are a lot of them, many Chinese species, have fairly small pens, the camel is tethered and is not too comfortable. The cats don’t fare much better as in the lion/cat house there are cages twelve foot wide at the most. The cats just pacing up and down completely looking glazed.
The two white Bengal tigers are faring better with quite a large open enclosure with multiple levels. I believe that these two were a bred pair and they are quite placid and calm with one another.
Throughout the zoo it clearly states no feeding of the animals. Not one person seems to care as they blatantly feed the animals. Worse is the brown bear enclosure where they drop the food in when the bear begs – it’s such a sorry sight.
The polar bear looks like it’s lost the will to live as it paces only twenty feet, bangs its head on the wall, turns and does the same the other end. This is probably the largest enclosure but the poor animal has completely lost it.
I can’t go anywhere near the other animals as it’s too depressing.