The Haikou Golden Bull Ridge Zoo on Hainan island in southern China has been called an “animal hell” by recent visitors who were appalled by the creatures’ living conditions.
Also known as Jinniuling Park, the zoo looked like it had been abandoned when tourists came to visit on Tuesday, according to South China Morning Post.
The only way visitors could tell that the zoo was open was due to a few men playing poker at its entrance gate, where they charged 30 yuan ($4.30).
The money obviously was not going towards cleaning the unused facilities and piles of trash in the animals’ cages.
At the reptile area, only one snake was alive, but hardly moved in its box, and another had been dead for quite a while.
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The tortoises were also covered in dust and one had paper money stuck to its back.
But Express reported that one man said the area housing mammals was hit the hardest, with Bengal tigers forced to live in small cages.
Some of the other animals in the zoo seemed to be distressed and in poor mental condition.
One Asian black bear was reportedly seen constantly nodding.
“This zoo is absolutely the worst hell for animals,” one Chinese tourist commented on social media.
A manager at the understaffed zoo tried to make excuses to the police saying the staff didn’t clean out the trash in the pond where a Nile crocodile was living because the animal was savage and ferocious.
The manager also said the one snake that wasn’t moving was actually in hibernation and she denied that the animals were being abused.
Authorities have since ordered the Haikou Golden Bull Ridge Zoo to keep the enclosures sanitary for its animals within two days.
