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Small concrete boxes

It's hard not to get depressed on a visit to a zoo in China. The animals are in cages that are too small. Weather conditions are inhospitable to many of the tropical animals on display. And the food supply is generally inadequate; visitors often throw junk food into the trash-strewn pens. While all is not lost--in Hefei, a large city in Anhui Province, for instance, the tigers have been moved to a large, open-air habitat. Many other animals in Hefei and elsewhere throughout China, from Sanya in the far south to Beijing in the north, remain locked in their small concrete boxes. There are signs of hope. A number of well-run tiger and panda preserves have sprung up throughout the country as a means of educating the public about China's wildlife and as a way to foster the continuation of these species. These facilities are deserving of the international praise they've received. The panda centers in Sichuan have done remarkable work in preserving the species and the animals' habitat. But the international media has done little to report on the condition of far greater numbers of animals wasting away in the country's urban zoos. Rumors abound that the animals in some of these facilities become fodder for Chinese medicine and rare products such as tiger corpse wine. Visitors hound the animals, tossing plastic bottles or hot dogs into the cages, rapping on the windows. The cages are small, dirty, and otherwise poorly maintained. Many of the animals are overcrowded, injured, or unhealthy. Few foreigners see these zoos; they're rarely marked on maps and they're usually located far from the well-beaten tourist path. And yet, the remain enormously popular among the Chinese public. Most of the zoos are cheap (US$1-5 per ticket) in comparison to other weekend activities and the zoos offer a chance to see many animals that have been wiped out of their natural habitats by the tremendous force of Chinese development. Though conditions seem to be improving in the country's urban zoos, the progress is slow. The small concrete boxes filled with sickly animals will remain a fixture in China's cities for a long time to come. © M. SCOTT BRAUER

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