LONDON: The Chinese government is looking to implement a new zoo strategy to end animal abuses, the government said this week. Although activists had been calling for the end of animal performances, the government did not go as far as to ban the shows, but did say any public displays of cruelty would receive harsh punishment and possible closure. At a number of zoos in China, bears are forced to box and elephants stand on their heads, in what Chinese animal activists say is inhumane. “We have been fighting for a long time to end this kind of treatment and at least the government is stepping up finally,” said Xi Xiapin, a longtime activist against zoos in China. “We absolutely applaud improved treatment of animals, but our main concern is whether these new regulations can be effectively enforced,” said Jeff He, China communications manager for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, an advocacy group that has tried to end seal hunts in Canada and fox hunting in the United Kingdom. “China needs a stand-alone, united and integrated legislation to prevent cruelty to all animals.” Citing animal deaths as well as human injuries, China's Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ministry issued a set of “suggestions to further strengthen zoo management” that require zoos to stop animal performances during a three-month inspection period that began October 18. An animal welfare law encompassing all forms of abuse remains in the drafting stage. Among the abuses reported prior to the rules: * Eleven endangered Siberian tigers were starved to death at a cash-strapped park in the northeastern province of Liaoning, where they were fed chicken bones. * In Heilongjiang province, authorities uncovered a mass grave of animals — including lions, tigers and leopards — that died of illness and malnutrition at a wildlife park. * China news media reported that several parks allow people to buy live animals, such as chickens, goats and cows, to watch them be fed to big cats. The new legislation will ban the sale of wild animal products and the feeding of visitors wild animals in zoo restaurants. “We can go to a zoo, see these animals and then eat them? It is crazy,” added Xiapin. The latest rules follow similar efforts in August and September to curb abusive animal performances, which are overseen by China's State Forestry Bureau and Ministry of Agriculture. Zoo managers have argued that the new laws will curtail visitors' interest in the zoos, but activists such as Xiapin and others say that the new regulations will “at least give animals the chance to live decently, if that is even possible in captivity.” BM
