The Zoo Blues

PETA Has a Point:

After a blue Christmas and a New Years that was decidedly painted black, my outlook on life was anything but rosy.  When we finally went on break I spent most of my time in a vegetative state firmly planted in front of the TV.  I told myself that my ongoing inactivity was justified and I was simply making up for the previous months of over-activity.  Unfortunately overindulging in being lazy didn’t make me feel any better, and the only thing it accomplished was to make all of my clothes fit a lot tighter.  To combat this stagnant phase in my life I decided I needed to get out and do something.  But what the hell was there to do in Hefei?

Clearly the toxins in the air must have been affecting my judgment.  I love animals and somehow reasoned that seeing the famous white tigers and giant panda at the Hefei zoo would boost my spirits.  Within the first five minutes of being there it became clear that the only thing this visit was going to do was drive me into a deeper state of depression. 

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) makes a fuss and puts up a fight on behalf of all animals; in Hefei I saw firsthand what happens when PETA isn’t there to throw any punches.

It was the first warm day in Hefei in 2011.  It was during Spring Festival break; families were out and about.  Swarms of people descended upon the zoo like a colony of ants that discovered a summer picnic.  I entered among the throngs of eager gawkers and we funneled our way along the cement path through a vast construction zone where they appeared to be planting a new forest of some sort.  There was a big brown furry mass up ahead with a bright red cloth on it.  As we approached I saw it was a two-humped camel standing on a short tether with a small foot ladder next to it.  People could pay to sit on the red cloth between the two humps and get their picture taken. 

Beyond this welcoming committee were the chain linked enclosures for various deer, elk and a small pen for some zebras.  There was no attempt to create a ‘habitat’ for these animals; just dirt, a trough for their food and if they were lucky maybe a few tree stumps.  I continued on and was assaulted by the unnatural, blaring and shrill sounds of some “fun forest” rides and arcade games.  I gave a death glare to send bad karma in the general direction of the offensive clatter, and to my horror I saw that the cage closest to this noise pollution belonged to the animal with the biggest ears in the world: the elephant. 

Imprisoned within austere iron bars was an enormous, lone Asian elephant.  He stared into space with a gaze that was both bored and searching.  It was a haunting, human gaze.  In the wild elephants wander several miles in a day; this one was restricted to a shed and a cement pad roughly the size of a basketball court enclosed with electric wires, spikes on the ground, a ditch and a firm set of metal bars.      

My heart had sunk to the pit of my stomach after seeing this poor pachyderm, so I turned and navigated my way through the bumper cars and past the rusting miniature roller coasters and followed a sign pointing to the monkey cages.  On my way I passed a camel gnawing on a discarded milk box, and a mangy ostrich that was missing half its feathers, and the ones it did have were ashy gray rather than sleek and black. 

The deeper in I got, the more it felt like I was in some twisted nursery rhyme and had landed on the island of the misfit toys.  The animals here were just stuffed playthings; a chimpanzee cast off because she was too small, a baboon tossed aside because he had dry patches of skin, and enormous tigers that were broken and didn’t do anything but lie down all day long.  There were performers there too.  There were big scary dogs that would bark on cue when people shouted and kicked at the fences of their tiny kennels.  And there was the monkey that would swing dangerously from the only tree in its cage and would then imitate the clapping of the people. 

Perhaps the saddest were the bear and the rare red panda that would beg on hind legs for food that people would throw to them in spite of all the signs warning people not to feed the animals.  My heart sunk down past my knees as I watched the bear eat a fully wrapped piece of candy that someone threw in for it.  As if these scenes and settings weren’t upsetting enough, perhaps the most disheartening and ironic of all was viewing the white tigers and the giant panda.

These animals are the most treasured and symbolic of all the animals in China, and yet they were the most sorely mistreated of them all.  Unlike the other toys in the land of the misfits, these ones weren’t meant to be played with, they were trophies and they were meant to be stared at.  The majestic striped cats had the smallest cages and there was absolutely nothing in them but a cement floor and the cats themselves.  The panda at least got a sprig of bamboo and had grass on the floor, but it was literally lying on a pedestal.  By now my heart was under my feet and I was stomping all over it, so I decided to get the heck out of there, half terrified of what I would see next. 

I threaded my way through the thick crowds, pausing on occasion when people would ask to get their picture taken with me, accepting my role as just another part of the freak show.  I waved goodbye to the poor camel that was still standing in the same spot at the entrance.  I squeezed into the overcrowded substandard bus and said good-riddance to the substandard zoo.  The couch, the emotional safety of watching re-runs of Friends and the inevitable tightening of my clothes wasn’t sounding nearly so bad anymore.

Summary: Animal rights activists may be loud and obnoxious, but it’s far easier to tolerate them than it is to tolerate the sight of Nature’s most beautiful creatures living in the most unnatural way.