I managed to pull myself away from the pandas a few times to go and see what else Shanghai Wild Animal Park has to offer – they have a huge range of animals here and the park is giant, so spread out, lots to see, and lots of steps to count for the day (I totalled 25,000 that day)!
Having been to a few different zoos and animal parks around China now, I will say that this is one of the best ones in China that I’ve been to – my only hesitation was the number of interactive experiences available. I’d say for about 75% of the animals, you could pay 30-50RMB and get a feeding experience. This ranged from through a fence with tongs for the big cats (interestingly I didn’t see anyone doing this while I was there while other animals were very popular), to being in the yard with the animals and even being able to touch them, like with red pandas or capybaras. The experience took place in the whole red panda or capybara habitat, so you couldn’t just see red pandas or capybaras on their own, which I would have liked the option of. Some of the animals chose to stay further from the paths for the humans, so it was good they had free choice to participate, but I did think it was a bit much – just something quite different to what we have in the UK/Europe. To note, I didn’t do any of the animal experiences. But other than that, it was a nice place to visit and I will definitely return.
I didn’t have time to see all the animals, however pandas are on the complete opposite side of the park to the entrance, so you do have to walk by many animals to get to them. The park is split into 6 zones, 1 of these however is a safari-type zone, so you need to take a shuttle bus around here, which I didn’t do because of time, but would consider checking this out next time. I also didn’t spend much time in the Giant Beast Zone, can’t believe I completely missed the elephants there! But I did check out the other 4 zones.
Shopping and food: there were many shops and vending machines for souvenirs, I only went into the panda shops, so I can’t speak for the others, but they looked to have a good range of items available (plenty of toys for kids along with fridge magnets). There were also lots of food options, from restaurants to on-the-go and vending machine options, including fast food with Dicos and McDonalds. I didn’t see a lot of people buying food when I was passing the restaurants/cafes, most people were using the seating to eat their own snacks, so perhaps it’s quite expensive. I ate at Dicos and for me it was comparable to city Dicos pricing, however I did buy an ice lolly and I think it was more than an average ice lolly would be from a convenience store (but it had a panda on it so I can’t complain 😂).
Getting to the park: because I was based at the Disneyland Resort, public transport wasn’t convenient for me at all, so I took a Didi there and back. This cost me 60RMB on the way there, and 47RMB on the way back, and the journey was approximately 15-20 minutes each way. There is a nearby metro stop and a bus service that runs from the metro station to the park, but I’m not completely sure on the logistics of that. When I left the park I booked my Didi and there were lots of taxi-touts around trying to get business, so if you don’t have Didi then it’s still possible to get a taxi easily.
‘Animal Nursery’
Now this isn’t listed as an area, however this section off the main path of the zoo was a cute stop, albeit I would disagree with some of the practices here. I wasn’t very happy to see a pile of lion cubs sleeping together on a platform in a small space rather than being in with their mums, even though it was cute to look at. This was the section that also had the tamandua’s which I was so excited to see! They were running around quite fast in their space and didn’t go into their outside yard, so it was tricky to get photos without reflections on them, but I eventually managed. These little guys are just so cute!
‘Cute Beast Alliance’
The Cute Beast Alliance zone (I think something has gone a little wrong in the translation here!) is the furthest zone from the entrance, all the way on the opposite side of the lake. This is the area where the pandas are, so I naturally spent most time here, and actually before I even went into the panda ‘loop’ I stopped by the giraffes because there was one right up at the perimeter and reaching over to eat some of the surrounding hedge! So cute and cheeky! As at many zoos, you can pay to feed the giraffes here, this one I didn’t see the cost of, but I assume less than 50RMB for a handful of something leafy – they had a separate section and platform for you to access after paying. There were at least 6 giraffes and I generally only saw a couple at a time choosing the feeding – the yard as a whole was very large and other food was available, so they have complete free choice if they wanted to participate or not. Here I also saw takin which made me very happy, I love takin^ They also had a very large yard, though it spanned depth rather than length so there was plenty of space for them to move back away from the people viewing. It was very quiet in terms of people watching, but the overall area here was quite loud as there was a stadium with an animal show going on opposite. I saw at least 8 takin and I just love the golden colour of their fur. Takins were one of the few animals that there was no interactive experience with. And then next door was the alpaca feeding habitat – gotta love a cute fluffy alpaca, there were quite a few people in doing the feeding but not too many, it was a nice balance I thought compared to some other animals. There were certain paths for the humans to walk on so there was space for the animals to choose to be away from people if they wanted, so I was able to get some pictures of the alpacas without people, however it was quite dark and shaded in this area, so not the best for viewing.
‘Moon Bay’
Moon Bay is the area closest to the entrance on the close side of the lake and there are a very nice range of animals living here. On the entrance side are a range of birds, including flamingos, while on the lake side are bears, raccoons and red pandas – and I really enjoyed this side and seeing the animals here. As far as I could see most/all of these animals had feeding experiences available to purchase, and the red pandas were by far the most popular option across the whole park. When I was there the line was around an hour long! The red panda garden was very large, and there were so many red pandas, I didn’t even count! What was also nice were the walkways for the red pandas in the tree tops, and these went out over the public area too, so there were lots of places to look up high and find red pandas sleeping – plenty were choosing this option and to stay further from the people going in to feed them. Next door were the raccoons and I really liked seeing these guys, however they were almost all asleep! It was a little chilly and these guys were all huddled together in big groups – again, no idea how many there were but there were soooo many! I really liked their pirate ship in their yard, otherwise it was looking a little bare.
The first animals I saw well in this area was first thing in the morning while I was on my way to the pandas, and that was the bears, who were out and only one family was watching them! They were definitely still waking up in the morning as they were more active in the afternoon when the feedings were happening, but still good to see them in the very quiet morning hours.
‘Monkeyland’
Monkeyland is the main home to most of the parks monkey and primate species, and on the edge of Monkeyland were a few other animals – namely the Capybara Land where you can pay to go in and feed the capybaras, and also the otters, which you can’t feed however I did catch one of the keeper talks there and while I couldn’t necessarily follow what was going on, the training actions were similar to ones I’ve seen in other zoos and the otter was very happy to participate in the session in return for a few treats! So onto the monkeys and primates. There was a very extensive collection here, to be honest I was quite impressed by the range that were on show and this was a large area with some very nice spaces for the animals to live in. I prefer the smaller monkeys and really got lucky in having a great viewing experience, particularly with both the golden lion and cotton top tamarins, really beautiful species. And I do always love seeing golden snub nosed monkeys, these guys have such beautiful fur and amazing expressions – they also had a very nice space to live in and it was very quiet over by their yard, so I was watching them pretty much alone. The whole Monkeyland area was very nicely done, with an island theme and elevated platforms walking around most of the areas, I really liked the use of water as a split between the different species’ yards and there was a good sized divide between the animals and you, and not a lot of glass, it felt quite natural.
‘Beast Water World’
The Beast Water World is one of the smaller sections with fewest different animals, however the individual animal habitats were all well sized, and I saw plenty of individual animals, particularly at crocodile beach! I have never seen so many crocodiles in one place before, I won’t lie, it was a bit creepy seeing them all lying there together being so still, it was difficult to tell if they were real animals or statues. And you really could get quite close to them – on the outside of the ‘beach’ you could view them through glass right in the water, but there was a walkway over the top of the ‘beach’ that was only a foot or so above the height of the animals, it was really something else! I didn’t see a lot of the brown bears, it was very busy at their viewing which was at water-height, I can see it would be quite amazing seeing the bears up close in the the water. I think there was maybe a feeding opportunity or there was a keeper talk where the staff fed them from the platform above the water which made it popular at the time I was there. And lastly there were tigers in this area – they had a huge outdoor space, and while there were quite a few people viewing, the windows were large so there was plenty of space for everyone. There were at least 5 or 6 tigers in this space, some were sleeping while some were wandering around the space. I liked that there was a stream running through the middle of the space into the large pool along the front window – tigers do like playing in water so this would be a great habitat to watch that in, I’m sure great in the Summer months!
