(CN) Multiple solutions to zoo crisis

[Guest guest]

Multiple solutions to zoo crisis

By Li Xing

China Daily

2006-11-09

 

A China Daily reporter almost got herself into trouble more than 15 years ago

after she published a feature story narrating the hard time a major zoo was

going through in keeping all the animals fed.

 

On Monday, however, a manager from Bingchuan Zoo in Shenyang, capital of

Northeast China's Liaoning Province, pleaded for public understanding and

support when she appeared on China Central Television's morning news.

 

The safari-style zoo located in Qipanshan Forest in the suburbs of Shenyang, has

to close down, she said, because many of its 1,000 animals have little food or

meat to eat as a result of the zoo's financial crisis. They are only able to

fully feed a small number of animals.

 

From silence to public pronouncement, the change in zoo managers' attitude is

very dramatic. Their candidness demonstrates the gradual openness of such public

institutions, and more importantly, it highlights the crisis some of the

country's zoos or wildlife parks many of them private business establishments

are going through.

 

Bingchuan Zoo is not alone. In the island province of Hainan, the Nantai Lake

Crocodile Zoo started selling crocodile meat on Sunday, according to a media

report, because the zoo, which keeps some 2,000 crocodiles, can no longer

sustain itself.

 

Coming out to solicit public donations is one way to help zoos get past

difficulties. However, I believe there is far more the zoos, as well as related

government agencies, should do to alleviate the crisis.

 

The government agencies that approve and supervise the establishment of zoos and

wildlife parks should keep themselves alert over the well-being of the

institutions and of the animals they keep.

 

According to the Chinese Society of Zoological Gardens, there were 173 public

zoos in China by 1998. Over the years, some of the zoos have been moved to

suburbs to become wildlife parks, while other new safari parks, such as the

Shenzhen Wildlife Park and Shanghai Wildlife Zoo, have been opened.

 

No official institutions have released the recent figures of the animals in

captivity in those zoos, but some zoologists sounded alarms early this year that

there were too many of these establishments to safely ensure the well-being of

the animals.

 

Meanwhile, the zoos have not kept up with the times in their management and

publicity despite their continuous expansion and renovation. Conservationists

complain that these establishments give their animals too little space.

 

Zoos can serve as a good and lively venue for education on a wide range of

issues of current concern, from zoology, biology, environment, wildlife ecology

to biodiversity. In fact, quite a few zoos in the country have done a lot of

research in some of these areas.

 

However, few schools have made zoos their frequent destinations for field

studies, not because students do not like zoos, but because current teaching

practices focus too much on textbooks.

 

As a result, only a few ordinary or safari zoos are able to attract steady flows

of tourists and sustain themselves, given their limited government funding.

 

Zoo crisis still looms here and there, and it will take good management and

strategy from government agencies and zoos themselves, as well as changes in

schools' curricula, to resolve the predicament.

 

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2006-11/09/content_728317.htm