Arctic blues? South China mall under fire for new ‘polar world’
Guangzhou shopping centre opens aquarium with 500 species but critics say animals are suffering
An aquarium housing beluga whales, penguins and polar bears has opened in a mall in downtown Guangzhou, but an animal welfare expert said the enclosures were too small and the mainland already had an overabundance of zoos.
Visitors to the Grandview Mall Aquarium were sparse on Friday morning, the first day after the launch. Most of the patrons were young children accompanied by their parents or grandparents.
The facility spans 58,000 square metres across the second and third floor, and calls itself as the “world’s largest indoor above-ground polar marine world”. It claims to have 500 species on display, including 30,000 marine animals.
But a visit to the aquarium found some of the animals displaying troubling symptoms.
An Arctic wolf, about 1 metre long, was seen pacing back and forth in its pen, which measured about 130 square feet.
