.big cats in small boxes I
Most guidebooks suggest travellers make a pass on the Beijing Zoo. The general outlook is that any enthusiast is in for a fairly miserable adventure, that will lack the Disneyland lustre of well-funded, high-calibre zoos.
What these travellers unfortunately miss out on, is the opportunity to be absolutely appalled at the horrendous conditions at this zoo, and be forced to use all manner of will-power not to open cages, and release a family of Siberian tigers into the back Hutongs of the city.
Not only are the Jing's animals clearly suffering from isolation and neglect, there has clearly been very little attempt at natural environment simulation. So instead of being surrounded by trees and the sounds of nature (which can't survive the Beijing winter anyway), most animals live in barred-off, cemented, pocket-hole apartments - not so unlike the human population, but without an out.
Whilst the most difficult vision is the hall filled with giant cats (lions, tigers, jaguars etc) locked indoors, in tiny, cement enclosures, it is also depressing (for an Australian) to find a group of kangaroos huddled around a heater in a small cement box.
.big cats in small boxes II
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