The Eastern Discovery Tour
Day 3

The zoo is divided in to two sections by this large river. You can go on speed boat and boat trips from inside the zoo, although I never got time to do that.

The outside of the elephant house is nicely decorated with these statues. I did though find the inside pretty disturbing. The elephants were engaging in repetitive motions, as they were clearly out of their minds through boredom. The zoo is going to have to do something about this if it wants to be a major attraction to Western visitors to Beijing.

The Rhino was in slightly better shape, but this enclosure is still on the small and barren side.

These zebras had become tame because they were so used to having people feed them. In this case I think the zoo needs to sell food to feed, and fine anyone who feeds them any unsuitable food.

This was part of an aviary in the children's zoo area. One thing here I didn't like was a collection of exotic cats, as in exotic household pets. They didn't have that big a cage, and no access to an outside area. It's probably no worse than what you get at a lot of breeders in this country, but it's not something a zoo would get away with in the UK.

The Great Ape house had Gorillas, Orangutans, and Chimps. The enclosures weren't that bad, but the indoor area was very dark, making it difficult to even see the animals in some areas. I didn't see any bedding for any of them to use either. They do have an outside area, but they only have access during mornings and early afternoon. I would like to know if there's a animal welfare reason for that. If not why don't they have access for more of the day?

The collection of different types of monkeys at the zoo was impressive. Some of the enclosures looked shabby, but apart from the issues of light and bedding there were no major areas for concern.
One of the monkeys on display were these rare Chinese Golden Monkeys.

This enclosure doesn't look great, but they had access outside, plus a good effort had been made to enrich the enclosure to keep the animals entertained.

The zoo did have a couple of amusement park rides on offer, just in case you don't want to miss out completely. Here's a set of dodgems.

Here's a Carrousel.