Beijing Wild Animal Park, the seventh scenic spot for wild animals in Beijing, plans to open on July 1, which has raised debate among environmental experts, eastday.com reported today.

Beijing Wild Animal Park covers an area of 3,600 mu (240 hectares), and it has collected more than 200 rare wild life species worldwide, with up to more than 10,000 animals.

Several other wild animal zoos have opened in Beijing, such as Badaling Wild Animal Park, Lark Park and Beijing Ocean World. Thousands of China's first and second class wild animals and worldwide near-extinct animals are in these parks.

The number and scale of the wild animal parks should be controlled, said Liang Congjie, chairman of Friends of Nature(FON), a Chinese environmental non-government organization, formally registered in March 1994 as the Academy for Green Culture, an affiliate to the non-governmental Academy for Chinese Culture. FON is a nonprofit, public welfare organization funded by membership fees and public support.

It is enough if there is one zoo in a city, and the excess construction of zoos will do harm to wildlife protection, said Liang. People will catch animals in the wild, especially rare animals, which will worsen the situation of near-extinct animals. For each animal transported to the wild animal park, there are certainly many others hurt or even killed in the course of capture and transportation, he said.

Zoos can not only educate people, but also bring happiness to them, but the setting up of too many wild life zoos is possibly aimed at making profits for businessmen, said Liang.

(Eastday.com.cn 05/15/2001)