A restaurant in northern China has been criticised by animal welfare groups for offering an unusual item on the menu: lion cub cuddles. According to a screenshot of a menu circulating on social media, Wanhui – a restaurant in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province – has a four-course set afternoon menu costing 1,192 yuan ($166/£124) that includes playtime with the in-house animals. The restaurant’s profile on Dazhong Dianping, a popular restaurant listings app, shows pictures of the lion cubs alongside other animals, such as deer and alligators. The menu…
Tag: Animals
How the global trade in donkey skins threatens the lives of women and girls | Letter
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on China, Africa and disappearing donkeys: an unexpected crisis offers a clue to perils ahead, 25 June), last year, The Donkey Sanctuary revealed at least 5.9 million donkeys are slaughtered for their skins every year to produce ejiao, a traditional Chinese medicine. Donkeys suffer at every stage – from capture and transport to brutal slaughter. With China’s donkey population depleted, the industry has turned to other countries in the global south. Despite its scale, this cruel trade remains largely unregulated and invisible, and it…
The Guardian view on China, Africa and disappearing donkeys: an unexpected crisis offers a clue to perils ahead | Editorial
What can help to protect women’s health, boost the incomes of impoverished families and thus allow girls to avoid early marriage? What – when it disappears – can set back children’s education, damage mental wellbeing, drive conflict within communities and become a vector for racial hatred? The humble donkey has rarely been in the spotlight. Yet Chinese demand for its skin proved so destabilising that African governments agreed to a continent-wide ban on the slaughter of the animal for its hide last year. This week, officials are meeting in Ivory Coast…
The missing lynx: how the rise of border walls has split up wildlife populations
The lynxes of the Białowieża forest once freely prowled through 1,420 sq km (548 sq miles) of ancient woodland. Then, in 2022, the habitat was abruptly sliced in two. Poland built a 115-mile (186km) wall across its border with Belarus to stop refugees and migrants entering the EU. About 15 lynxes were left stranded on the Polish side of the forest, forced into a genetic bottleneck. The 5.5-metre high barrier, which is topped with wire and cameras, also dissects the forest’s population of bison, wolves and elk. Researchers monitored 10…
The killer whale trainers who still defend captivity: ‘I’m an endangered species myself’
Some people spend a long time deciding what they want to do in life. Hazel McBride feels lucky that she’s always known. As a child in Scotland, she watched a VHS tape of Free Willy on repeat. That was the first time she felt a connection with killer whales. The second time was at age eight, on a trip to SeaWorld Orlando in 2000. Shamu was the animal world’s greatest celebrity, and in the US, SeaWorld ads were ubiquitous. Kids wanted to see the killer whales, and after they saw…
World Bank’s funding of ‘hog hotel’ factory farms under fire over climate effect
The private sector arm of the World Bank is facing claims that it contributes to global heating and the undermining of animal welfare by providing financial support for factory farming, including the building of pig farming tower blocks in China. A coalition of environmental and animal welfare groups is calling on the World Bank to phase out financial support for large-scale “industrial” livestock operations. More than $1.6bn was provided for industrial farming projects between 2017 and 2023, according to an analysis by campaigners. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of…
Panda diplomacy: meet the giant (and expensive) diplomats on loan to Australia from China – video
Wang Wang and Fu Ni are the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere. The giant pandas are on loan from China and have lived in Adelaide zoo for the last 15 years. The pandas were loaned to Australia in 2009, under an initial 10-year agreement, which was extended by 5 years in 2019. Australia pays China around $1m dollars to keep the pandas in the country. The contract is likely up for discussion again as China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, visits Australia this week The Guardian
Ai Weiwei’s ‘Zodiac’ Is a Mystical Memory Tour
As the Year of the Dragon dawns, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has released “Zodiac,” a “graphic memoir” of scenes from his career — both real (hanging with Allen Ginsberg, the O.G. of Beat poets, in 1980s Greenwich Village) and imagined (debating Xi Jinping, China’s paramount leader). Each chapter frames the artist’s take on traditional beliefs about the characteristics humans share with the 12 animals of the Chinese lunar calendar. Gianluca Costantini’s intricate line drawings pair with Elettra Stamboulis’s comic-bubble text to help expand Ai’s lifelong campaign for free expression…
Giganto, largest ever primate, died out due to diet change, say scientists
It was the largest primate ever to have roamed the Earth, but just why – and when – our distant cousin “giganto” ended up extinct has been something of a mystery. Now researchers say the enormous ape was victim of an unfortunate choice of food when its preferred snacks became scarce. Gigantopithecus blacki roamed mainland south-east Asia 2 million years ago, with estimates suggesting it was three metres tall and weighed 200-300kg – roughly three to four times a human’s weight. Previous studies have shown giganto’s range decreased considerably by…
‘Rock star of an animal’: Edinburgh zoo’s pandas to return to China
As soon as she heard that Edinburgh’s pandas were about to be flown home, Sarah Greenwood knew she had to see them. “I love everything about pandas,” she said. “I absolutely couldn’t miss it.” Wrapped in a thick coat and hat to guard against the freezing temperatures and the first snow flurries of winter, Greenwood, an events manager, 52, travelled from Cambridge on Wednesday to watch Tian Tian and her partner, Yang Guang, grazing on bamboo, sleeping and exercising. She is not alone: the news that the only pandas in…