Visiting the Beijing Aquarium and Zoo was on my bucket list for studying in Beijing.  I always enjoy going to the Baltimore Aquarium so I wanted to see what Beijing’s was like.  Although I was very impressed with the aquarium, I was horrified at their zoo.  More on that later though.

The aquarium is located in the back of the zoo’s property.  It is a wonderful, large building with fun facts and pictures everywhere!

We saw many different types of fish in beautiful tanks.  The layout of the whole aquarium was very windy so we were always surprised at what we found around the corner. 

Look! A Beluga whale!

Anytime we went up or down a level, the escalators took you through a tank.  We got to see many sting rays right over our heads!

They also have a whole exhibit on jellyfish! My favorite!

As we finished our visit to the aquarium, we had to walk back through the zoo to exit.  Although the aquarium cost about $20 USD, the entrance to the zoo (which we had to pay) cost less than $2 USD.  I don’t know too much about the subject, but I’m pretty sure you can’t run a zoo on less than $2 USD per person.  When we walked past the animal’s cages, it became painfully obvious that this was true.

This was the polar bears cage.  See how brown he is.  His pool was completely drained.  From what we could tell, it wasn’t recently drained either.  Piles of leaves were gathering at the bottom.

This is what most of the smaller animals’ cages looked like.  Cement floors. No color or stimulation. No toys and no other animals.  I felt pretty awful for this fox.

This was an eagle’s cage.  See all the while at the bottom, that’s droppings.  Looks as though it hasn’t been cleaned in weeks. Even his water was filthy.

All the tourist websites I’ve seen blatantly say how depressing the Beijing zoo is.  Unfortunately, for anyone to get to the aquarium, you must pay the entrance fee to the zoo. I didn’t want to support the Beijing zoo but seeing it in person helps me to understand how zoos and China works.  It’s just a shame that pandas get treated like kings in Beijing while the other animals suffer in these horrible conditions. I think visiting both the aquarium and zoo was a learning experience, but for very different reasons.