"We hope in this way more visitors will look at the animals with tenderness and affection, not as if they were merely resources for human use," said zoo official Tang Jirong, who is in charge of the revamp.

The new information boards started appearing in October 2001. "There are more corrections and rewriting than we expected," said Tang.

The decades-old information boards described the tiger as an "evil animal" whose meat is edible, bones can be used as medicine and fur can be made into carpet.

The newly erected board in front of the tigers' pen includes a detailed description of the tigers' plight in China and the world, and calls on visitors to protect them.

"We have removed words of hostility," said Tang, "The new boards say tigers can also live on crops, but may attack human beings when starved to extremes.”

Tigers used to be widely feared and hunted. Figures provided by the Shanghai zoo show that between 1952 and 1953, some 170 South China tigers were killed in central China's Hunan Province alone. The creature is now on the verge of extinction.

"Some people killed male tigers to eat their genitals, which are believed to have the functions of Viagra," said Tang. However, recent research has found that a tiger's copulation time lasts for only 18 seconds on average, he said.

Tang and his colleagues have completed revamping the descriptions of some 200 species. They are working more slowly than expected because from time to time, they have to consult many books before they agree on the wording.

Tang said he loved the rewriting job. "Man will treat animals as equals some day," he said.

An incident caused widespread outrage and invoked widespread concern for animal welfare last month when a college student was detained for pouring a mixture of sulphuric acid and caustic soda over bears in Beijing Zoo.

(China Daily March 5, 2002)