By Did Tatlow
Beijing: A polar bear named Pizza, whose fate as an air-conditioned exhibit for shoppers in a mall in southern China prompted millions of animal lovers to call for the release of what they called "the world's saddest polar bear," is moving but perhaps only temporarily.
The exhibition space at the Grandview Polar Sea World at the Grandview Mall in the steamy city of Guangzhou is being "optimised and upgraded," causing the move, according to a notice on a social media account of the aquarium, where Pizza and hundreds of other arctic animals are housed indoors.
"Pizza, the 'bear baby' that a million customers have enjoyed, will say a temporary farewell to everyone for a while, to return to where he was born and to his daddy and mommy," the notice read.
Chinese animal welfare groups welcomed the news but said it did not go far enough. Pizza should be permanently re-housed, they said.
Pizza lives in an aquarium in a shopping mall in China.
"It's a good decision, the right decision for Pizza, but it's not the end,'' Qin Xiaona, the director of the Capital Animal Welfare Association, said in a statement. "Temporary is not good enough. Now we hope that Grandview will learn from this episode and move Pizza permanently so that he never again has to endure the dreadful life in a shopping mall."
Qin said the mall's other animals should not be forgotten amid the concern over Pizza.
"We still want to see the aquarium closed once and for all, to see all the animals moved," she said.
The upgrade includes doubling the size of Pizza's living area, according to The Guangzhou Daily. Animal welfare groups said that his pen was inappropriate for a wild animal, but the aquarium previously insisted it was suitable. Pizza, a 3-year-old, adult male bear, arrived in January.
Pizza is just one of several animals kept in less than ideal enclosures for the viewing pleasure of shoppers.
Visitors to Pizza's enclosure often bang on the glass and take flash photographs of him with their smartphones.
In the notice, the aquarium did not say exactly where Pizza was going, or when he would return.
Contacted by telephone, a spokesman for Grandview Polar Sea World declined to answer questions, asking for them to be emailed, but did not immediately respond to the email.
Qin, whose group helped organise a petition with 1 million signatures calling for Pizza's release, said there were reports the bear was returning to a facility in Qingdao, a city on China's north-east coast.
But a spokesman for the Qingdao Underwater World aquarium denied that Pizza was being sent there and said that Pizza's parents were not there either.
A spokesman for another major aquarium and polar animals facility, Harbin Polarland in the northern province of Heilongjiang, said Pizza was not headed for that facility either. He said he did not know where the bear was going.
In October, Pizza's plight led dozens of animal activist groups to write an open letter to Zhu Xiaodan, the governor of Guangdong province, where Guangzhou is, calling for the bear's release into conditions more appropriate for a wild animal that roams a large, natural territory.
Zhu and his office did not respond to the letter, Qin said in a telephone interview.
"I really didn't expect them not to answer at all," she said. "They won't admit that he's unwell."
Video footage showed Pizza pacing, rearing up on the side of his glass enclosure farthest from visitors, shaking his head from side to side, and sniffing and pawing at an air vent - distress behaviours, according to animal rights activists.
News that Pizza was moving caused a rush of visitors, the aquarium said in a separate notice. In order to mark his temporary departure, the mall organised a special event on Sunday.
In a "Pizza Fan Club 'Give Back' Day," visitors who paid to see Pizza on Sunday and who also followed the aquarium's social media accounts were given a gift worth 100 renminbi, about $19, the notice said.
Animal welfare groups say shopping malls in China increasingly use wild animals to attract customers in a bid to compete against the growing popularity of more convenient and often cheaper e-commerce.
China does not have an animal welfare law. Animal welfare advocates say one is long overdue.
No one answered calls seeking comment to the foreign propaganda office of the Guangzhou city government Monday afternoon.
New York Times