Beijing Zoo small review of Beijing Zoo, 17 Sept 2013

Beijing Zoo is a rather large zoo, but it is all flat so not too much work to walk around it. It is a bit confusing for a first time visit with paths going everywhere but I *think* I saw everything. Luckily there are easy-to-understand location maps all over the zoo. However there seemed to be many areas closed off or under construction/repair, and a lot of enclosures appeared to be empty of inhabitants (some had obvious work going on inside them, but others just “looked” like they didn't hold any animals).

It was raining all day, not a heavy rain like that which ended my visit to Seoul Zoo last month, but a persistent kind of rain. Perhaps because of this there seemed to be rather few people at the zoo, certainly a LOT less than I had anticipated. Also unfortunately the rain may have been the cause of quite a bit of bad luck on the animal-viewing front with many species not at all visible.

The zoo isn't what I would call a “really good” zoo, but it isn't a “bad” zoo either. The number of “large” enclosures I could probably count on the fingers of one hand but by the same token there weren't many tiny cages. Most were I guess what you could call “average” in size. However most were not very pleasant to look at (nor probably to live in), with a lot of concrete and dirt and usually little in the way of enrichment. A lot of them were very dim inside as well. One particular frustration for me was that the majority of enclosures were glass-fronted. No doubt this is a bonus for the animals because the public can't throw things at them, throw food to them, or spit on them (yes, I saw someone spitting repeatedly on a cassowary – he walked off quickly when he saw me heading for him!), but it also makes photography – and sometimes even just seeing the animal – difficult to impossible due to a combination of reflections and dirty glass. And some of the glass was very dirty indeed! There are several parts of the zoo which have a separate entrance fee (the children's zoo, the penguin house, the giant panda area) which always irritates me, even if the amount is a very minor one; I was surprised the reptile house didn't have an entry fee as well.

Sort of a walk-around of the zoo follows. It's not very complete and will probably be a bit rambling but keep reading. From the entrance gate I headed right (I think you can go left as well) because local Zoochatter “baboon” had told me that the small mammals (which are in that direction) are most active early before feeding at around 10am, and also that the Pallas' cat would only be likely to be seen early on in the day. I skipped the Giant Panda Area intending to return there later, and went through the horribly-euphemistic “Pheasant Garden”. The aviaries here are wretched things, and it is a shame that these are some of the first exhibits that visitors will see. Concrete floors, heavy welded mesh (photography next to impossible), dirty walls. The first few are glass-fronted but the glass is so dirty that again photography was mostly out of the question. Loads of different kinds of pheasants here, including Cabot's and Temminck's tragopans; brown eared, blue eared, white eared and Tibetan eared pheasants; Swinhoe's, golden, Lady Amherst's, Reeves', kalij, and probably others; also a great bustard, chukar, red-billed hornbills, parakeets and a few other birds. I didn't see any species of monals at all (but they have or had female Chinese monals off-display). Leaving here I unexpectedly found a crested ibis aviary and golden snub-nosed monkey cage. These were glass-fronted and could be viewed also from the other side (from inside the Giant Panda Area as I found out later). The three ibis were perched high and I couldn't do much with them, so I thought I'd come back later for photos (which I did). The male snub-nosed monkey was brilliant, but no photos due to the glass problems. There is another crested ibis aviary elsewhere in the zoo but somehow I didn't actually see it – although I kept heading towards it whenever I saw it on the map boards, I always got sidetracked onto something else before reaching it! There are also some small mammals in cages here, namely masked palm civets and common raccoons. I think this must be where the red and white flying squirrels are too, but I saw no sign of them.

The Nocturnal House was next and this was a real abomination. Easily the worst lot of cages in the entire zoo (which, as I said, mostly had “adequate” cages rather than “bad” ones). Nocturnal houses usually do have too-small enclosures, to my constant chagrin, but this one took the cake. I'll call them “boxes” rather than “enclosures” or even “cages” because that is what they were, little glass-fronted concrete boxes, empty but for a branch or two. There wasn't a lot of variety either. The first nine boxes held either thick-tailed bushbabies or douroucoulis, then one for a ferret (labelled “Steppe polecat” but with the scientific name of the domestic ferret; whatever, I didn't see it in there), then twelve even smaller boxes for slow lorises (one or two in each box)! The final row of boxes had a few empty ones, but otherwise there was one for “West European hedgehog” (I didn't see any), one for fennecs (not seen either), one for brush-tailed possum (I saw its head sticking out of its log), one which had a bird cage inside in which were some sugar gliders, and two for kinkajous (these were a bit bigger because each was actually two cages joined together; however there were maybe ten kinkajous between them and they were overcrowded). Behind this wall of the Nocturnal House (as in, outside the building) were the fox runs and I think some of the inside cages were connected to the outside runs (there were fennecs in one of the outside runs, and hog badgers in another which appeared to have a door leading to one of the empty Nocturnal House cages). The fox runs were large, and planted to varying degrees (from heavily to sparsely). There was a group of corsac foxes in one run and I was surprised how small they are compared to red foxes; the other runs held red foxes, American red foxes (the one I saw was a silver fox), Arctic foxes, fennecs, raccoon dogs, and hog badgers.

I wanted to see a Pallas' cat, which were in the Felid House (not surprisingly), so I left the foxes and motored off in that direction. I didn't give much time to the monkeys (I briefly noted they had ring-tailed and black-and-white ruffed lemurs, red-tailed monkeys and Diana monkeys amongst others), passed the huge glass-windowed enclosure for rhesus macaques (initially I thought it must be for golden snub-noses because it was so large and obviously fairly new), and then the dog runs which were (average-sized) glass-fronted wedges of sand and nothing else in which paced black-backed jackals and grey wolves. There is some sort of overhead train track (?) running over this part of the zoo which was welcome as a shelter from the rain as I walked. There was a nice glass-fronted (see the theme here?) stand-alone enclosure for Chinese porcupines after the dog runs, and then the bear enclosures. I suppose you would call them “bear pits” but they aren't bad actually. I've certainly seen a lot worse. They were concrete of course but had plants growing in them as well, and the brown bear one in particular had a lot of shrubbery. The polar bear enclosures weren't overly big, but even they had some planted areas at the back. The polar bear house itself was closed so I'm not sure what's inside; you could only view the enclosures through the windows at front.

Then came the cat section (the zoo, in case you hadn't noticed, is arranged taxonomically on the whole). The cheetah enclosure is quite nice, well-themed, good signage (all in Chinese), not terribly big but not tiny either. The jaguar and leopard cages aren't as nice, and not overly large. I didn't actually see any leopards or jaguars in the cages because I didn't stop to look. The outside cages for small cats are just by the entrance to the Felid House, and appear to be for just three species (caracal, Pallas' cat and leopard cat). The house itself was closed and the door padlocked. To my disappointment, of the Pallas' cat there was not a whisker to be seen. Also of note is that the zoo used to have a Chinese desert cat but it died a couple of years ago (there are a couple of photos of it in the gallery). The lion and tiger enclosures are nearby. I didn't pay much attention to these. I took a few photos of some of the signs (I thought Arizona Docent might appreciate them when I can upload them some time) and had a quick squiz at one of the outside areas (pit-style but heavily planted; looked good).

After getting something to eat at one of the very very very many food outlets scattered around the zoo, I went back to the Pallas' cat but still no luck, so headed to the Australian section. The red kangaroo enclosure is perhaps the largest enclosure at the zoo, relative to the animals it houses. The signage around the enclosure gave the impression that it also housed red-necked wallabies, dama wallabies, platypus and thylacines – at least to me, but perhaps if you can read Chinese that wouldn't be the case!! There is a house here as well for Australian animals, but there's not much in it currently. On one side (outside) are parrot aviaries which can also be seen from inside, holding greater sulphur-crested, red-tailed black and yellow-tailed black cockatoos, galahs, eclectus, king parrots and Mallee ringnecks. On the other side are pens for common cassowary. Inside the house is a walk-through bit with an aviary for Australian finches and two tanks (both unoccupied with empty pools) for Siebenrock's snakeneck and pig-nosed turtles, and viewing for the (also completely empty) pen for red-necked and dama wallabies. On the second floor of the Australian House is a weird exhibition space for, as far as I could tell, conservation and energy resources. It was all in Chinese so I might be way off. It appeared to be tied somehow into Australia and China together?

Right next door is the American Animals section, where the emus were in the rhea pen and the rheas were in the emu pen. Not confusing at all! Also here were llamas and alpacas in a generously-sized yard, Mexican hairless dogs (behind shockingly filthy glass windows!), giant anteaters (in far too small pens), two-toed sloths in their very own house, and American bison. Off another path were small pens for Brazilian and Malayan tapirs (sort of combining zoogeographical theming with taxonomic theming!) and some very nice enclosures for raccoons, coatis and, er, banded mongooses. These enclosures were glass-windowed, very large (relatively speaking), and very well filled with all sorts of plants, logs, rocks, etc etc. I approve these three enclosures most heartily!

My wanderings after this point sort of went all over the place as I tracked and back-tracked about, so I'll just make some random comments. The African Animals section seemed to be composed of just the giraffe enclosure and the zebra enclosure. The zebras were pretty tame and apparently used to people feeding them! (There are signs all over the zoo advising visitors not to feed the animals, not to bang on the glass, and in many cases not to take flash photos). I took some photos of the giraffe enclosure and signs for David Brown, whenever I can get round to uploading them. The rhinos, hippos and elephants were all in an adjacent area so I guess they can be included, but I didn't see any of them (they were all inside their houses).

The Deer Yards are where all the bovids are held (deer, antelope, goats, etc). These aren't the greatest, all being rather small and empty, just a patch of dirt with iron bars around them. Like holding pens rather than a proper living space for hooved stock. A bit depressing really, especially because there are a lot of the pens so it's kind of like walking through a sales yard for farmers. I don't know if it was the rain or what, but almost everything was inside and not visible. The only muntjacs I saw were three common muntjacs (“Javan muntjac” on the sign) – the black muntjac I saw not at all. I saw just one goral. I thought all I was going to see of takin was a head, but in another pen I found two golden takin out feeding. They are HUGE!! I thought they would be about the size of a babary sheep but they are like a bison or something. Wow. I really hope to see one wild while I'm in China!! I saw Asian wild ass (one came right up to the fence to stare at me [as did the male golden takin which was awesome!]), kiang, white-lipped deer, fallow deer, red deer, barbary sheep, but otherwise if I saw anything in a yard it was just a shadow inside the shelter. A poor day at the Deer Yards for me!

The bird aviaries are mostly clustered together somewhere past the Deer Yards. There is a walk-in aviary here with scarlet ibis, black stork and others (is this where the black-faced spoonbills were supposed to be? I never saw them). The Parrot House is ugly inside and dimly lit. In fact it had about the same lighting level as the Nocturnal House! When I walked in a flock of golden-fronted conures in the first aviary took flight and two of them literally flew straight into the glass front with clearly audible thuds! At another aviary a minute later a black-capped lory did exactly the same thing. I think it might be something to do with the aviaries being too dark so the birds fly at the lighter visitor area when they get startled. Individual aviaries elsewhere outside held a variety of hornbills (wreathed, Indian, red-billed, von der Decken's, southern ground and silvery-cheeked). I was pleased to see Japanese hawfinches which were very nice birds. Unfortunately the Mongolian lark remained unseen. Apart for those last two birds (and the black-faced spoonbills), everything else was pretty ordinary.

Moving on I passed the area where the baboons and apes are (I skipped them entirely), found the penguin house (which I didn't enter because it was an extra charge for some reason), paused by the otter enclosure where I didn't see any otters but the enclosure is very big and good, and went into the Reptile House to escape the rain for a bit. The Reptile House is big, far bigger than I had thought it would be, with aquatic tanks (turtles and amphibians) on the ground floor, lizards on an upper floor, and snakes on a lower floor. On first entry I thought “wow this is a great reptile house” because the first impression is a good one. Unfortunately when you look closer it has the Cincinnati Zoo style of exhibition: almost all the tanks are too small and entirely unsuited for the inhabitants. This is especially evident in the aquatic section, where turtles and tortoises sit forlornly in hopelessly-inadequate tanks. It gives it that sort of “pet shop” vibe, rather than a “zoo” vibe. Interesting lizards here were Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilus) and Qing Hai toad-headed agamas (Phrynocephalus vlangalii), but otherwise quite a lot of common stuff (leopard geckos, Burmese pythons, that sort of thing).

I finally got round to the snub-nosed monkey complex, which is a group of four cages containing golden, Guizhou and Yunnan snub-noses. I saw all three species which was good, but I did not get a single usable photo, partly because of where they were sitting, but mostly because of the rain running down the viewing windows. However I was very pleased to have seen them. I think I like the Guizhou one the best. The Yunnan one just looks freakin' weird!!

Last stop at the zoo was the Giant Panda Area right by the entry gate. This has an extra entry charge which is 5 Yuan (NZ$1). I've never seen a giant panda before but oddly enough I didn't really care. But there were Himalayan snowcocks in there as well, and I wanted to see those. Just inside the Area are three aviaries, the first of which held the pair of snowcocks. Really nice birds, well worth $1!!! One of them was carrying on, calling repeatedly. I don't know if it was because of me, or if the other bird was doing something wrong, but he didnt stop. Their aviary was pretty dark, with the usual heavy mesh, so I don't think any of the photos turned out well. The other two aviaries had golden pheasant and blue peafowl. There was also viewing into the crested ibis and golden monkey cages I mentioned at the start, and a red panda cage. The giant pandas weren't doing much, mostly sleeping. I took some photos because why not. They really are boring!!

So that's the zoo. I think I may have rambled on for a bit too long. I also visited the Aquarium which is in the zoo – which is also very large – but that will be the subject of another thread. I'm sure baboon will be able to add some comments about anything I overlooked or misinterpreted. Any questions I'll do my best to answer.

 

....and that title is meant to say 17 Sept......

 

I was a bit up and down while walking round the zoo. Some of it was just depressing, some of it was fine. I'm glad I went but I don't think I'd hurry back. It's almost like the zoo is too big, and they can't cope with having so many animals to look after.

 

I think part of it too is that it is in the process of trying to modernise. All the glass windows fronting the cages are (while annoying in terms of photography) much better for the animals for the reasons I said in my first post. There are some really good new enclosures there. But as with any really big and really old zoo (I think it opened in 1906 or something like that) even if they worked round the clock and had endless money, it would take years to replace all the old cages with new. So it will be a mix of good and bad for a long time to come.

Also any zoo in China is combating the general attitude of the visitors........

 

it must work then, because I heard nothing!

I saw white spoonbills but not the black-faced, but I've seen them in South Korea so no problem. I did mean Baird's tapir (I've only seen Brazilian tapirs before, so I wrote that automatically). There were three muntjacs, they looked more like common and that's what the sign said (Muntiacus muntjac) -- do they only have Reeves' and not common?

I did get the impression they are trying to improve the enclosures, and there are some really good ones (like the coatis by the tapirs for example). Unfortunately still lots of not-so-good ones. I only saw a few instances of bad behaviour, most people were good, but there also weren't too many people there that day.

I hope so, but I am prepared for failure!

 

thanks.

And yes, there were Baird's tapirs at the zoo (I put Brazilian tapirs in error: see above).

 

Or indeed Berlin, being as they have three kinds there!

 

yep, it said "Javan muntjac Muntiacus muntjac" and then all the rest in Chinese of course. I didn't take a photo of them because I've seen plenty before.

 

and that review is now here: http://www.zoochat.com/247/visit-beijing-aquarium-17-sept-2013-a-337833/#post710441

 

.....and I have finally got round to uploading photos of the zoo! They are just the ones off my small camera so mainly enclosure and signage photos, including giraffe ones for David Brown.