Badaling Safari Park

It was a beautiful day yesterday. Blue skies and cool. Not too cold, but good for a nice walk in the sunshine. My Colleague Richard bought a new lens and we had to come up with an excuse to use it. As it was a 100-400mm lens, I came up with the stellar idea of heading out to the Badaling Safari Park. My Interest in this park had been piqued by some articles I had read where they indicated that they do live feeding shows with live sheep, goats and cows to the Lions and Tigers. “Surely not” was my initial reaction, so we decided that we’d head out and have a look.

The Park is right on the main entrance to the Badaling “Great Wall of China” entrance. The Great Wall gives many excellent views on the way to the entrance. I must come back another day to photograph this stretch… hmmm. The day is an awful grey one. The clouds and haze have settled in making it a lot colder and generally unpleasant. It was an Omen for what was to come.

The Entrance has some large elephant statues (huge things) that actually make up the entrance building. The Photos sucked so I am not showing them. (Haze everywhere) It actually looked closed, so Zhu (my driver) headed up to a gate to ask for instructions. After much too-ing and fro-ing we got tickets and were instructed to go an wait for our ride. Zhu, being the trusty fellow he is, saw the brochure where the lions jump on the cars and he wasn’t about to let the trusty Ol’ Buick get scratched!!!

It’s a place in general disrepair. Not dissimilar to many other attractions around Beijing. They seem to build them and never maintain them again. We’re ushered into a large room with a contoured map of the facility (old and broken looking) in the middle of the room. Old lounge chairs line the walls and there’s a Kiosk of sorts in the corner that seems to sell Noodles (if you like Noodles, you are in heaven in China!!) and on the walls are pictures of many of the animals that we are about to encounter in the park (Apparently).

We wait patiently for the transport. Out in front of us is a large awning, with shops lining a sort of avenue. Only one of the shops appears to have any life in it. There is a small store selling what appear to be toy tigers, coke and some snacks and, of course, noodles. Four buses with wire on the windows are sitting prone and rusting in the middle of it all. In the distance we can see more buses and some cages, but cannot see what is in them.

We are ushered out to a waiting van. Directly outside the door is an enclosure with a Border Collie and another dog of indeterminate breeding. “Strange” was the first thought that came to mind, but I gave it no real thought, patted the dogs and headed to the van. No one spoke any English, so we were working in international grunt and sign language, The odd “Xie Xie” and “Mai Wan Qui” seem to keep them smiling and guessing. Richard and I are alone in this endeavour. Thevan has seen a few too many trips around the park, but it is offset by the fact that we are in it alone.

We head off into the unknown….. oops, no, we have to collect a guide.

Now with the guide in tow we head into the park.

It’s cold outside and the van is good respite. There’s a breeze blowing and it’s around -4 or -6 celcius. I wonder for a moment how the African Animals are enjoying it.

We drive past a cage with a bunch of young lion cubs in it, but we don’t get a good look. On the right and up a few roads there are dozens of large buses sitting empty with the wiring on their windows and weird looking chutes sticking out the sides. These buses are all looking a little rusty and lacking in repair. It’s a theme for the park really. So on and up the hill to the first attraction. Our Guide talks to us in Chinese and we smile, not comprehending. She repeats in broken english “No Open Windows”. We can see White Tigers wandering around in the next enclosure and assure her that this instruction is well understood.

The gates and fences all look old and rusty. It’s not an inspiring view. The sign (which is repeated throughout the park as we drive through the myriad of gates and enclosures) has typical spelling and grammar. There must be a business here for decent translation of public signs…..

The Tigers are indifferent and one stops behind the van to defaecate. Not a great photo opportunity. We wave the driver on. The enclosure is bleak. There’s no cover and no vegetation (winter deprives everything of foliage) and the Tigers look cold, hunkering down out of the wind.

The next enclosure has wolves. My lens is not long enough and we are shooting out of a window, so I am not really motivated to take any shots. The place has a depressing air about it and I am looking forward to it all ending already.

We are then into the main Lion Enclosure. I see about 30 lions, male and female, lying down in holes of their own digging trying to get out of the cold. These are very furry, certainly more so than Lions in their native Africa. They look really cold. One male is wandering around at the back and he looks positively arthritic. He’s not enjoying the cold at all and is looking for a warmer place to sit. Big cats like to sit together so a huddle of about thirty all keeping warm looks like a natural thing to do. A little up the road is the famous coliseum for the summer months where there’s a restaurant (Noodles on the menu!!) and a series of steps up on to the roof where live chickens and other animals such as Goats and Sheep are thrown into the enclosure for the pleasure of the guests. Luckily for us it is well off season and the animals did not look likely to get up unless they had good reason. Get me out of here!!!

Off we go into the Tiger enclosure. More tigers sitting around. The Driver has no clue about getting a photo so we constantly are parking in front of a tree or well past a good vantage point. At one stage the driver starts beeping his horn to get the attention of a Tiger. Good god, get me out of here!!

We continue around into another Lion Enclosure and we park in front of this fellow below. Tell me he doesn’t look a little cold!!!

Every now and then we stop next to a small cage. The first one has Himalayan Vultures in it. I couldn’t photograph it. It had six vultures in the space for a canary. They are impressive animals, reduced to sad specimens. They looked positively pissed off as well. The second were some pigs and the third were some foxes (I think). Very small and active they were. There must have been 20 of them in a small small cage. We waved the driver on.

We came to a larger opening and there were Donkeys tied to poles walking around in circles. It was an alive merry go round. They asked us (grunt grunt signal signal) if we wanted to go for a ride. If it wasn’t so preposterous, we may have laughed. (Point Point) We gesture for them to continue.

We then go back down the hill and into an area with Deer, Camels (double humped) and some of the worst looking peacocks that I have ever laid eyes on. It might be the time of year, but the condition of the birds and their plumage was appalling. Some of the wild horses were fighting, the camels (that did look impressive and were running about, but we missed them as the driver just drove on by) and the deer were in a long narrow section and the guide offered to let us out for a look. Bugger that!! It was warm in the van.

We head down past some more cages and there are monkeys in them. Another enclosure has some otter. All quite abysmal!

The Driver traverses a few more cages and exhibits and stops in amongst the buses about 400 metres before the main entrance. We are informed that our ride ends here. On our right are the cages full of young lion cubs that I mentioned at the start. They are extremely boisterous and are eying us like a vampire views a virgins neck. They are not small and they are in behind a single wire mesh fence. There are three strands of “electrified” wire atop of the fence. We wonder if they are live. Who wants to test it eh??

Around the back of the Lion enclosure are two Tigers. They look bored. This is a very small enclosure for them.

One Yawns as I try and get a shot of him through the mesh. They are certainly not as lively as the Lions.

The cubs in the other enclosure (count about eight, and one with a missing leg!!) are really interested in us. I found being so close to these animals very intimidating. There was not much between us and getting eaten, from what I could see. They were full of mischief and gave us a looks akin to Donald Trump looking at a bag of cash that’s not his yet. They were especially taken with the Camera and monopod . Richard took some shots of them jumping on the fence to have a better look at me when I touched the fence with it.

Next is a photo of the sort of looks we were getting. Playful yet hungry??