(CN) Chinese private zoo

[Guest guest]

South China Morning Post

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

http://hongkong.scmp.com/hknews/ZZZ2INB5XBD.html

 

HK campaigner rushes to the rescue of bears at failed Guangxi zoo

Starving animals reflect the proliferation of poorly run private

parks, says group

 

 

ANNA HEALY FENTON

 

Jill Robinson on her inspection rounds at Yulin Zoo, where four

bears live in poor conditions. Picture by Annie Mather

 

A Hong Kong animal rights campaigner who has worked successfully with

authorities on the mainland to save bears from bile farms is hoping the

partnership can rescue animals starving in a financially troubled zoo.

 

Jill Robinson recently took food to four endangered bears at the

failed Yulin Zoo in Guangxi province, which once housed 1,000 animals

including an elephant, camels and lions. She had read about the creatures'

sorry plight in the Los Angeles Times.

 

" We have never heard hunger cries like those of the big Asiatic male

bear, " said Ms Robinson, the founder of the Animals Asia Foundation.

 

In 2000, the foundation entered an agreement with the official China

Wildlife Conservation Association in Beijing and the Sichuan Forestry

Department to rescue bears from bile farms in the southwest provinces. The

association has filed a report on the Yulin Zoo to its government partners

in Beijing and appealed to it to confiscate the bears.

 

Ms Robinson said a brown bear at the zoo weighed barely half his

normal 400kg. The 17-year-old bear, which could easily eat 20kg of meat a

day, had survived on scraps such as porridge and rice since 1998, when

business at the private zoo, a joint venture with the local government,

soured.

 

The zoo owner, former private school administrator Liang Feng, said he

had expected a subsidy from the local government to help maintain the zoo

when business dropped off. " I thought the government would help out, " he

told the Los Angeles Times. " I brought the first zoo to our area. I was

making history. "

 

During its first Lunar New Year in 1994, Yulin Zoo drew 30,000

visitors and made as much as HK$140,000, Mr Liang told the Times. But as the

initial rush of visitors trailed off, so did the cash.

 

Without a subsidy from the state, the zoo dropped the admission price

by 40 per cent but it made little difference.

 

The Hong Kong-based spokesman for the Asia Animal Protection Network,

John Wedderman, said the proliferation of poorly managed private zoos showed

how captive animals had become victims of the mad dash to get rich.

 

" Keeping wild animals is a prestige thing in China. But they have no

idea how expensive and difficult it is to look after these animals, " he

said.

 

According to the Chinese Zoo Association, there are at least 200

private animal parks nationwide.

 

No legislation exists on the mainland to prevent cruelty and abuse

against animals, including those that may be endangered.

 

Mr Liang told Ms Robinson he would sell the zoo and the bears for

three million yuan (HK$2.82 million) or Animals Asia could build him an

enclosure on site so he could keep them and show them to the public.

 

The foundation hopes the government will confiscate the bears. If a

suitable home cannot be found, Animals Asia will offer them a home at its

sanctuary in Sichuan with the 84 bears it has rescued from bile farms.

 

" It won't be a cheap or an easy exercise, " Ms Robinson said. " But

having seen those bears first hand, we cannot walk away and do nothing. "