Grade 4 students at the Shanghai United International School recently went on a field trip to the Shanghai Wild Animal Park and boy, did they have fun! Mini-writer extraordinaire Michelle Hendriks of Class 4D shares her story with CW.

Shanghai Wild Animal Park

Away from the busy streets and concrete jungles of Shanghai, there is a place where people can have a chance to see nature up close. This place is called the Shanghai Wild Animal Park. This heavenly park is located only 25 kilometers from the city center in Nanhui district near the Pudong airport. It opened on the 18th of November in 1995. Part of the park is set up like a traditional zoo, while the rest of the park allows groups of animals to roam freely in large enclosures. These enclosures can be visited by vehicle.

On the 25th of March this year, all 4th grade classes from SUIS went on a field trip to this magnificent park. Unfortunately, that day the traffic was very bad so we arrived there an hour late. Despite all this, we still enjoyed ourselves and had a fantastic time. When we finally arrived, the park officials allowed us to take the school buses into the wild animal area. We drove through enclosures with antelope and wildebeest, bears, cheetahs, and the strange combination of lions and tigers. We all took many pictures but some of them didn’t turn out so well because the animals were too far away from the bus. As we left this part of the park, we all started talking to each other about what we had seen.

After the first part of the visit, it was finally time for lunch. We were all starving! Our teachers found a nice place by the waterfowl lake to eat and watch the birds swimming in the water. The waterfowl lake is in the middle of the park. Many migrating birds choose this lake to spend the winter and it is also home to many swans, geese, and cranes. Too bad we were not allowed to feed the swans because they came to us begging for food. Instead, we just took pictures of them. These pictures actually turned out quite well because the swans came so close to us.

After lunch, we went to the lemur island. It consists of several parts. There is an open area where the well behaved ones can walk around freely. Then, there are a few large cages with groups of lemurs and lastly, some very small cages, like prison cells, for the naughty and misbehaving animals. Some children bought cups of cut bananas to feed the lemurs but I gave them the banana from my snack box. Feeding the lemurs was fun! While we were feeding them, we noticed a zookeeper bringing a naughty lemur that had run away back to the lemur island. The zookeeper was holding it by the tail! The naughty lemur was trying to scratch the zookeeper but it had no chance as the zookeeper stretched his arm to keep the animal well away from his body. This lemur was obviously put in a prison cell cage. We all laughed as he tried to get out.

After the visit to the lemurs, we walked into the zoo part of the park. The first animals we saw were the pandas. There were two pandas but only one was close to the viewing area. It was fat and lazy and kept scratching its butt. Everyone found it very funny. Next, we saw the golden monkeys, the bird park, and some sleepy white lions and tigers. Then, we came to an enclosure with many monkeys. They were brown and about 40 centimeters tall. They had many babies, some of which were play-fighting. Several were running around trying to steal food from each other. We also saw mothers grooming their babies and lower ranked adults grooming higher ranked ones. When I squatted down next to the glass, one of the monkeys came over to me because it thought I was a monkey too and wanted to play. But I only wanted to take a picture.

Unfortunately, we had no more time to see the other animals, nor time to see any of the animal shows. Since the traffic had been bad in the morning, the teachers were worried that we wouldn’t be back in time if we followed the original schedule. And they were right as we made it back only just in time. During the bus ride, many people fell asleep because they were too tired.

All in all, it was a very interesting and exciting trip and a good conclusion to our UI topic about endangered species and the environment. A visit to this park is highly recommended, and for more information, go to their website: www.shwzoo.com.

By: Michelle Hendriks SUIS-4D