Beijing Zoo reopened on Monday after being closed since Jan 24 as part of efforts to control the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak.

The 5,000 animals have been fed well, are housed in sanitized areas and are enjoying the spring sunshine.

Zhang Chenglin, the zoo's deputy director, said, "Some of the animals, such as the pandas, preferred to have more exercise when the zoo was empty."

Veterinarians checked the animals' health. A pregnant Malayan tapir received the most attention, with regular ultrasound examinations.

Ma Tao, who looks after pandas at the zoo, starts his working day at 7 am by taking a fixed route on a delivery truck to feed the animals in their enclosure.

Workers such as Ma help prepare 2,000 kilograms of food for animals at the zoo every day, including chopped carrots, fresh cucumbers and raw meat.

"My happiest time of the day is to see the animals eating, even if sometimes they take a bite out of my arm," Ma, who is in his 40s, said jokingly. He added that it usually takes about three hours to distribute food to all the animals.

Occasionally, they need "afternoon tea", with grapes being the red pandas' favorite. Ma often feeds these animals by hand.

With snow falling in Beijing in the middle of last month, keepers spent more time checking on the animals. Some of the inhabitants preferred to keep warm in their enclosures, while others enjoyed being outdoors.

Zhang said: "Tufted deer prefer to be outside and can resist the cold even in extreme wintry conditions. They jump and run around frequently in the snow."

In the past month, zookeepers have been engaging with these animals to win their trust.

Zhang said he is most concerned about baby tufted deer, as they are extremely timid. He added that the term of a pregnant tufted deer is between three and seven months, during which time the animals must be provided with a quiet and stable environment to ensure they have adequate rest.

In the wild, tufted deer, which are listed as a national first-class protected wild animal, usually inhabit forests at an altitude of about 1,000 meters.

"Keepers need to be patient so that these creatures can get to know them after the first contact," Zhang said. "In the case of a newborn tufted deer, a keeper has to come to the animal at least four times before it will trust him and eat from his hand."

Zhang said disinfection measures at the zoo have been strengthened.

"We completely disinfect and sterilize the zoo once a week," he said, adding that the animals' food is carefully checked and purchased from Xinfadi, a wholesale market for agricultural products about 20 kilometers south of the zoo.

"We have sufficient food stored at the zoo to feed the animals for six months," he said, adding that designated suppliers have to be contacted in advance for deliveries of some food, such as bamboo for the pandas.

Zhang said online trips to the zoo are available, where visitors can see enclosures being disinfected and the animals fed.

Beijing resident Wang Shengru and her 6-year-old daughter are eagerly waiting to revisit the zoo. The chimpanzees are the young girl's favorite, as the animals make her laugh when they eat bananas.

Due to the outbreak, both mother and daughter have remained at home for more than one month. "She misses her animal friends terribly," Wang said.

Since Feb 22, Hongshan Forest Zoo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, has been livestreaming footage of animals being fed. In the mornings during weekends, two "hosts" use a phone camera to take online visitors on a sightseeing tour of the zoological park.

Many people have voiced concern about food supplies for animals at the zoo, with online donation campaigns being launched to provide them with fresh vegetables, fruit and meat. The livestreaming sessions show that the animals are being fed well.

Source - TheJakartaPost

They told people not to come': #Australia's bushfires ravage tourism industry

Pillars of fire and smoke from bushfires are tarnishing Australia's reputation for pristine vistas abounding in wildlife and wreaking havoc on tourism, operators say, as authorities are forced to cancel concerts, close parks and evacuate towns.

The smoke has shrouded entire cities and driven air quality to unhealthy levels, with at least 10 people dying in the fires in the past week, while colonies of animals such as koalas and flying foxes have been destroyed.

"Seeing all the images of fires on television and social media is not going to help, it puts a dent in Australia's reputation as a safe tourist destination," said Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital.

"It's come at a time when the economy was already fragile," he added, ranking tourism as Australia's fourth biggest export whose strength officials had been counting on to help offset a domestic reluctance to spend.

Bushfires burning for weeks near the world heritage site of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in the southeastern state of New South Wales have driven away tourists.

As visitors take to social media to warn others to steer clear, the number of busloads of tourists each day has fallen to about four from 15 or 20, said Stacey Reynolds, a receptionist at the Blue Mountains Backpacker Hostel in Katoomba.

"They told people not to come in and it's affected everything, from restaurants to motels to backpackers to cafes," she added. "The streets are empty."

Although there is no published nationwide data on tourism since the fires took hold in late spring, Australia attracted 2.71 million holiday makers last summer, up 3.2% from the previous year, as many fled the northern hemisphere winter.

Hotels in the largest city of Sydney saw a fall of 10% in guest numbers in December, the Accommodation Association of Australia said.

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"The fires and the smoke have had a real brand and reputational damage in Sydney," added its chief executive, Dean Long.

The train and cable network of Scenic World in the Blue Mountains had 50,000 fewer visitors in December, down 50% from last year, Chief Experience Officer Amanda Byrne said.

Scenic World was open, but the hotels around the area are having more cancellations than bookings, she said.

Government agency Tourism Australia, which released a new advertisement last month to lure Britons to beautiful beaches and stunning scenery, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The scorching temperatures and bushfires, which have also burnt vineyards in South Australia and warmed the usually cool island state of Tasmania, will hit the sector hard, said Judith Mair, who studies tourism, environment and consumer behavior.

"It will be in stages - immediately with evacuations, dislocations and cancellations, but also in the longer term, because tourists buy holidays based on the image of a destination and Australia's is being badly affected," said Mair, a professor at the University of Queensland Business School.

Hundreds of national parks in the southeastern states of New South Wales and Victoria, thronged by 100 million visitors a year, have closed.

With fires burning nearby, Christopher Warren, co-proprietor of a bed and breakfast in Kangaroo Valley in New South Wales, said he had to evacuate his guests.

"The worst-case scenario is that we would be hit by a fire and our business would be destroyed," said Warren, who saw the best case as a loss of income exceeding A$80,000 ($56,048), through the disruption of three of his busiest months.

Paul Mackie, who uses AirBnB to rent out an apartment on Sydney's Bondi Beach to British and European tourists in the peak summer holiday period was hit by last-minute cancellations.

"I had bookings for the whole of this period going for the next couple of months, but a lot have cancelled because they said they saw the news of the fires," Mackie added.

AirBnB declined to comment.

A Sydney airport spokesman said it did not have recent statistics on whether the fires were hitting arrival. A Qantas spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the wildfires had hurt bookings.

The fires have spotlighted Australia's environment policies, criticized most recently at a U.N. summit in Madrid, said Susanne Becken, a professor of sustainable tourism at Griffith University in Queensland.

"The government's response to the climate crisis does not bode well...and this is not good for tourism," 

Source - TheJakartaPost

Thailand's sex-shy giant panda dies aged 19

A beloved male giant panda on loan to Thailand from China has died aged 19 in Chiang Mai, leaving Thais on Tuesday to mourn the death of a mammal whose sex life captivated the kingdom. 

Chuang Chuang, a resident of the northern city's zoo since October 2003, arrived with female Lin Hui, where the pair lived in an air-conditioned enclosure.

The pair's mating habits -- or lack of -- became a source of relentless public intrigue, with Chuang Chuang put on a low-carb diet and shown video clips of panda's coupling in an attempt to spice up their sex drive. 

After struggles to conceive, Lin Hui finally gave birth thanks to artificial insemination to Linping in 2009, spurring a widely-watched live 24-hour "Panda Channel". 

Dismayed Thais woke up Tuesday to the news of Chuang Chuang's death. 

"Rest in peace, little bear." 

Chiang Mai zoo director Wutthichai Muangmun said before his death, Chuang Chuang was doing what he liked best -- eating bamboo. 

"He was walking around, but staggered and fell to the ground," he told reporters. 

Each panda was insured for up to 15 million baht ($490,000) under the agreement with China, he added. 

On loan from Chengdu, the pair were a part of China's so-called "panda diplomacy", and were supposed to be returned in 2023. 

Giant pandas are notorious for their low sex drive, and are among the world's most endangered animals. 

Their average life expectancy ranges from 15 to 20 year in the wild, but they can live up to 30 years in captivity, according to WWF. 

Source Jakarta Post