Crocodile, Hippos on Menu at Beijing Zoo's Restaurant

(May 22) – Some zoos are not just for looking at animals. If you're going to Beijing, you can eat them as well.

Crocodile and kangaroo tail, as well as the webbed toes of a hippopotamus are all on the menu at the Beijing zoo's restaurant.

And if that doesn't sound exotic enough, there's always scorpion and deer's penis, with ant soup as a starter.

The Chinese predilection for rare wildlife is particularly prevalent in the southern Guangdong province, where some endangered species are highly regarded for what is seen as their ability to cure or ease health problems.

Student activists in the region are campaigning to curb the practice. But news of the zoo's menu, first reported by China's Legal Daily newspaper, has stirred a wide outrage among conservationists, according to The Guardian of London.

Eating exotic animals is legal in China as long as they were raised on farms.

But the restaurant was in exceptionally bad taste, the president of the Capital Animal Welfare Association, Qin Xiaona, was quoted as saying by The Global Times, a website produced under the auspices of the official People's Daily.

"We are against putting exotic animals on the menu, no matter if they are farm-raised or caught in the wild," Qin said. "It may give people the impression that eating wild animals is legal since legal restaurants are serving them.

"The zoo is where we teach our children to be nice to animals. How can we do this after eating them?"

A similar view was expressed by Ge Rui of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, who told The Guardian, "It is utterly inappropriate for a zoo to sell such items."

He added, "One of the zoo's missions is to foster love of animals and a desire to protect them. But by selling the meat of caged beasts, this zoo stimulates consumption and increase pressure on the animals in the wild. It is socially inappropriate."

A legal expert at the China Academy of Social Sciences, Chang Jiwen, who is trying to draft an animal protection law, told the newspaper, "Although it is legal, I don't think it is humanitarian. It is very inappropriate and immoral of them to sell such products. It is against the aim of the zoo."

The owners of the Bin Feng Tang restaurant refused to talk to The Guardian, the paper said, but a Global Times report said the restaurant had received approval for its menu from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry.

A manager with the surname of Li confirmed exotic meat was on the menu, according to the site, and said, "The meat served in our restaurant is edible and from farms."

But staff at the restaurant, according to The Guardian, said that in light of the opposition being voiced, changes would be made to the menu, which currently offers scorpion, ostrich egg, shark fin soup and other set dishes at between $14 and $150 each.