Visiting the Siberian Tiger Park

The Siberian Tiger Park Gift Shop

Today we visited one of the main tourist attractions of Harbin--the Siberian Tiger Park. This park houses well over 100 tigers in a free-range environment. They are supposedly being raised for future release but the condition in which they live is not really a natural one. There are too many tigers in each enclosure and the way they are fed--either pieces of meat given to them through the bars by tourists or whole live animals delivered into their midst--is not one which will hone their hunting skills. This park is not so much a scientific breeding centre as the panda centre in Chengdu is. Rather it is a farm producing tigers for parts for Chinese traditional medicine. At this time there is a ban on the use of tiger parts so evidently any dead tigers are kept frozen in case of a future rescinding of the ban.

Now that we have all of that nastiness over with you can admire some of the photos of the tigers! (Travel through the park is by safari bus or on overhead walkways.)

Two tigers--a famous Chinese song!











We travelled to the tiger park by taxi. It was quite easy. The Harbin taxi drivers are wonderful!

Yesterday we had our first hot pot meal of the trip and we really liked it so we went back again for dinner tonight. We're just getting the hang of it but it is healthy (with plenty of roughage), warm, filling and cheap! We are thinking of getting a hotplate and hot pot to bring home with us.

Enjoying hot pot in Harbin