Animal protection groups blasted the Taipei Zoo’s hosting a birthday party for giant panda cub Yuan Zai (圓仔) on Sunday, accusing it of misleading the public about the proper way to treat wildlife and of mistreating the cub with its endless commercial gimmicks.
The 34kg cub, which turned one on Sunday, was treated to a giant ice cake made of beetroots, apples, pineapples and carrots. Zookeepers also showed her several bamboo branches decorated with signs marked with different professions — following the traditional practice called zhuazhou (抓周), in which a one-year-old child chooses from different items symbolizing various professions to give their parents an idea about what their children are interested in.
Yuan Zai picked up four of the signs: painter, engineer, flight attendant and teacher.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan chief executive Wu Hung (朱增宏) said the zoo claims to be an educational facility, but its practice of treating animals too much like human beings could give the public wrong ideas how to treat wildlife.
Wu Hung also accused the Taipei City Government of violating animal welfare because the zoo frequently using the animals for commercial purposes.
Pandas are native to Sichuan Province in China and moving them to Taiwan — even if they are kept in large air-conditioned rooms — are a travesty that goes against animal welfare and the laws of nature, Wu Hung said.
The zoo’s actions are in essence “imprisoning” an entire panda family, he said, referring to Yuan Zai and her parents.
What the zoo should be teaching is that “wildlife should not be put on display and they should be allowed to live in their natural habitat,” Wu Hung said.
However, since the pandas arrived in Taiwan, the zoo has done nothing but try to capitalize on their novelty, he said.
The zoo’s claims of helping with panda conservation while providing such a bad example of how to treat them is horrifying, Wu Hung said.
He added that the zoo should start by introducing local fauna and helping Taiwanese understand their own environment.
Life Conservationist Association’s Monitoring Committee for Animal Protection executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said it is already wrong to keep animals in a zoo, but for the zoo to give more care to one over the others is an insult to life.
“Would Yuan Zai become an engineer or a flight attendant just by picking those bambloo plaques made by the zoo?” Ho asked.
There are many animals that are born in the zoo every year, and there is no reason other than commercial gain for the zoo to focus solely on Yuan Zai, Ho said.
Citing data from the zoo, Ho said that orangutans, a lar gibbon, black-and-white ruffed lemur, white rhinoceros, bongo, Przewalski horse and the hog-nosed coon all gave birth in the past year.
The zoo responded to the criticism by saying that was only able to hold simple birthday events for elephants and gorillas — which mainly consists of stacking foodstuff into the shape of a cake and giving extra food to the parents — because of limited manpower and a busy schedule.
The zoo is not uncaring toward other creatures, but it cannot afford to hold birthday celebrations for all of them, citing as an example insects, which lay dozens of eggs at a time, it said.
Compared with last year, the number of visitors to the zoo increased by 50 percent to about 2.4 million people — including 1.6 million who visited the panda exhibit, it said.
The zoo added that it has heard the complaints about not paying enough attention to other animals and would seek to rectify the situation.
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