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This was a rather sad place to visit. The poor wolves have a pitiful existence. People would feed the animals next to the sign that says "Do not feed the animals". We will not be going back.
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Date of experience: September 2020
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If you ever visit China, this is one place you should definitely AVOID! I was on a business trip with 30 other people, and I can clearly remember everyone saying the same, succinct message when we departed: 'Armageddon for Animals'. Upon the group's reflection of the enjoyable and successful trip to China, we all unanimously agreed that this definitely was a place to forget, and by far the worst part of the trip. I hope that you can read this review to save yourself from such misery and disappointment. For starters, to call 上海动物园 a 'zoo' is the most misleading and false name for such a popular tourist attraction. This was the worst maintained, up kept and managed zoo I have ever seen in my life. Let's start with the enclosures. The magnificent Giant Panda. All these people flocking around the enclosure to catch a glimpse. I knew I was about to enjoy this... When I finally managed to get a look, I actually questioned what I was looking at. Sitting right in front of me were two Giant Pandas, enclosed in a confined, concrete wall-surrounded room, with limited straw, just lying down. After all, there was no where else they could go. Still with high hopes that things could get better, I was shocked when I saw that pretty much every other enclosure was built in the same way, again, with limited space. For the enclosures that were different, such as the birds and kangaroos (to name a few), conditions were not getting better. There were at least 10 to 15 parrots (which were quite big) all sharing the same cage. The only birds not in a cage, the macaws, only two perches were provided, which all twenty of them had to share. The kangaroo enclosure? Some dirt enclosed by a fence... Enclosure Location - If me and my group hadn't wandered off the main path, we wouldn't have seen some of the 'hidden' enclosures. I believe not many other people knew about these enclosures, and if they did, they were not going there and giving the animals any attention. When my group arrived at some monkey/primate enclosures, there was no-one to be seen. And we had come in the middle of the day - the zoo was far from closing time. When we walked around the concrete monkey enclosures - I was heart-broken when I saw every single monkey in the vicinity rush up from the back of their enclosures to the front glass to see us. They just looked at us when we walked past. I decided to kneel down to one monkey's eye level and he began to talk to me. When I put my hand on the glass, the monkey mirrored me. If it wasn't for the glass. Our hands would have touched. My heart broke instantly, and if that wasn't bad enough, when we had to go, it began to follow me. He went as far to the edge of its cage as it could possibly go, just so he could still see me. Its actions in those 10 seconds summed up for me what they would have experienced for years: Loneliness. No zookeepers and animal supervision - If what I have told you already wasn't bad enough, it gets worse. This, in my opinion, was the WORST part of the zoo. When my group arrived at the bear enclosure, we were shocked by what was happening. People were enticing and incentivizing the bears to stand vertically towards the top of their enclosure towards where the people were standing, by dangling a biscuit over the edge of their open enclosure over them. Not only did they tease the bear, but then they actually fed the bear - with human food. But that wasn't all, people were taking it much further. There were people throwing food in plastic bags to the bears, and they were eating it. Watching the bears chew up the plastic bag and then swallowing it like some sort of rubbish dispenser put me to tears. Unfortunately, on this modified diet consisting of human foods, plastic, and other unhealthy rubbish, I can't see the bears surviving for much longer. Using my basic Chinese I told one person to stop, but even though one stopped, it didn't stop everyone else. There were at least 15 people feeding the bears human food, plastic, rubbish and all. What was even worse, my group went to go see a zookeeper to try and tell them what was going on, but I couldn't find one. Where were they? Was I really in a ZOO? Happiness - Again I go back to the monkeys, and I question not only their, but all the animals' happiness. Other disheartened and depressed animals included all these exotic Australian and South American parrots. They were all clinging to the edge of their cages, yelling non-stop and as loud as they could. Walking past the kangaroos and other ground dwelling species was also extremely sad. They were all so skinny, with nothing to do and little to eat, other than stare at the dirt filled, fenced-off area that was their 'enclosure'. The overall happiness of the animals? Well, it was hard to tell whether the animals were depressed or just extremely sick. To summarize, please do not go, especially if you are a tourist and want to tell your families back home about the amazing experience that China was. I yearn for these animals' wellbeing.…
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Date of experience: September 2019
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Its a must visit during your visit to Shanghai.Layout of the zoo is good and snacks available.The Giant Panda area is the highlight.Saw a lot of birs and animals which I had never seen before
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Date of experience: April 2019
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Its good to go there, but will be good if that place be more cleaner. And the directions is not clearly, im so confused when i saw directions
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Date of experience: January 2020
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We visited Shanghai zoo on 03.11.2019. It was excellent to see nice selection of animals kept in near natural surroundings. Pandas are really beautiful!
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Date of experience: November 2019
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