In what could be part of Shanghai Zoo's already ill reputation for being a hotbed of ill-mannered tourists, video footage of visitors tossing coins at a crocodile enclosure during the Chinese New Year has stoked controversy.
Deemed as a gesture to attract good fortune, the pelting of coins, first reported by the Chinese website YCWB and then by the Global Times, was also meant by visitors to wake up the sleeping crocodiles. However, such did not sit well with animal lovers, who were mainly concerned with the reptiles' health.
Sina Weibo was replete with comments criticizing the visitors. One user said that the crocodile may end up swallowing the coins and having them stuck inside their throats and stomachs, while another user remarked on the presence of water spots in leisure facilities as popular fixtures where people throw coins.
Another user did not let Shanghai Zoo's management off the hook, noting the possibility that the visitors' behavior is encouraged. The user stated that people from the management may have thrown the coins to the enclosure first so that the visitors may follow suit.
Regardless of the case, the plight of crocodiles in their coin-filled enclosures only serves as among the many instances where Shanghai Zoo has become a conduit for rowdy visitor behavior against animals. The facility has long been at the center of controversy regarding animal treatment, City Lab reported.
Shanghai Zoo has received flak for the way animals have been treated within its confines. Reports of deer dying from ingesting plastic bags have come alongside visitors throwing plastic bottles inside lion dens, resulting to the facility turning into a virtual plastic dumpsite.
Other animals have died in Shanghai Zoo because of trash fed by unruly visitors. Herbivores and birds have been among the most common casualties due to disruptions in their diet, while the death of Hai Bin, a giraffe, in 1993 from consuming plastic bags proved to be the facility's worst example.