(CN) Guangzhou Zoo

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

http://www.scmp.com/

Friday, July 7, 2006

 

Our animals are not starving, insists director of Guangzhou Zoo

LEU SIEW YING in Guangzhou

 

Guangzhou Zoo has rejected visitors' complaints that it is

maltreating its inhabitants, saying some animals looked starved

because they had not adjusted to the climate and were not absorbing

nutrition efficiently.

 

However, animal activists say that while the animals may not be

starving, they are not being properly nourished and stimulated. Luz

Rivero, an American teaching English in Guangzhou, has launched an

effort to save the animals after visiting the zoo recently and

finding an elephant " clearly malnourished " that " by its posture and

the obvious begging for food looked more like a circus entertainer

than a creature living in a simulated natural environment " .

 

" I am not blaming anyone. I am an animal lover. I want to do what I

can to put these animals into a sanctuary, " she said.

 

Deputy zoo director Chen Honghan admitted that he had received

complaints from visitors about how malnourished and dirty the animals

looked, especially the big cats. But he denied the zoo was not taking

good care of its animals. " The African elephant is quite skinny and

wrinkled, but that's only the outer appearance and not because of

undernourishment ... the Manchurian tiger is from cooler climates and

it has not adjusted well to the heat, " he said.

 

Mr Chen said the zoo fed its tigers about 8kg of beef six days a week

and let them fast on Sunday to rest their digestive systems to

simulate conditions in the wild.

 

Gail Cochrane, a veterinarian at Animals Asia, said that while she

did not think the zoo would starve its animals, like all mainland

zoos, it was probably not feeding them a proper diet.

 

" Even if they are fed 8kg of beef, large cats need whole prey which

include the bones and fur, " Dr Cochrane said. " In western countries,

zoos add a special supplement to the meat. "

 

She said mainland zoos were unwilling to buy the vitamin and mineral

supplement that were expensive and not available locally.

 

Guangzhou Zoo, which is 48 years old, sprawls over a beautiful 45-

hectare park in the heart of the city. It attracts 3 million visitors

a year. Mr Chen said that while it managed to break even, the zoo did

not have much money to upgrade the animal enclosures, which would

require an investment of up to 55 million yuan.

 

Poster's Note: Please check out:

http://www.aapn.org/zoopage.html - scroll down to Guangzhou.

and

save_the_zoo_animals/