Hippo on the Menu at Zoo in
Beijing
A reader sent in the following article. Our
question: Is there much difference between zoos with restaurants
where patrons can eat the same species on exhibit at the zoos and
zoos with restaurants that serve the meat of cows, chickens, fishes
and other fellow animals we humans customarily dine on?
http://www.guardian .co.uk/environme nt/2010/may/ 21/
exotic-animals- beijing-zoo- menu#start-
of-comments
Don't feed the animals, but feel free to feed on them in
the restaurant, visitors to Chinese capital's zoo are
told
A mother hippopotamus gives her female calf a nudge on the
behind as they swim. Visitors to Beijing zoo can view the animals
then eat other members of their species. Photograph: Ken
Bohn/AFP/Getty Images
Visitors to Beijing
zoo are warned not to feed the animals, but they are
encouraged to eat them at a restaurant that offers crocodile and
scorpion on its exotic menu.
After watching the beasts in their cages, diners at the zoo's
restaurant can gnaw on the webbed toes of a hippopotamus, chew a
kangaroo tail, nibble a deer's penis or slurp down a bowl of ant
soup.
The sale of the dishes has caused outrage since it was reported by
the Legal Daily newspaper earlier this week, with conservationists
condemning the practice.
"It is utterly inappropriate for a zoo to sell such items," said Ge
Rui of the International
Fund for Animal Welfare. "One of the zoo's missions is to
foster love of animals and a desire to protect them. But by selling
the meat of caged beasts, this zoo stimulates consumption and
increases pressure on the animals in the wild. It is socially
irresponsible."
Chang Jiwen, a legal expert at the China Academy of
Social Scienceswho is trying to draft an animal protection law,
said: "Although it is legal, I don't think it is humanitarian. It
is very inappropriate and immoral of them to sell such products. It
is against the aim of the zoo."
Online comment was also predominantly critical. "Watching animals
imprisoned in a limited space while eating their siblings, how
would you feel?" wrote Zheng Yuanjie, a famous Chinese writer, in
his microblog.
The owners of the Bin Feng Tang restaurant were unwilling to
comment to the Guardian, but they have told domestic media that the
meat was from exotic animal farms and its sale had been going on
for several years with the full approval of the authorities.
In the wake of the negative coverage, however, staff said they
would be revising the menu, which also includes set dishes of
scorpion, peacock, ostrich egg, shark fin soup and other delicacies
for between 100 and 1,000 yuan (£10-£100).
The criticism is a sign of changing times. In the past, notices on
each of the zoo's animal cages included information about which
parts were the tastiest and most useful according to traditional
Chinese medicine. Those details have now been omitted.