By DANNY PENMAN

Last updated at 20:57 05 January 2008

The smiling children

giggled as they patted the young

goat on its head and tickled it

behind the ears.

Some of the

more boisterous ones tried to

clamber onto the animal's

back but were soon shaken off with a

quick wiggle of its bottom.

It could

have been a happy scene from a family

zoo anywhere in the world but for what

happened next.

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A man hoisted up the goat and nonchalantly

threw it over a wall into a pit full of hungry lions.

The poor goat tried to run for its life, but it

didn't stand a chance. The lions quickly surrounded

it and started tearing at its flesh.

"Oohs" and "aahs" filled the air as the children

watched the goat being ripped limb from limb.

Some started to clap silently with a look of

wonder in their eyes.

The scenes witnessed at Badaltearing Safari Park in China are rapidly becoming a

normal day out for many Chinese families.

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Baying crowds now gather in zoos across the

country to watch animals being torn to pieces

by lions and tigers.

Just an hour's drive from the main Olympic

attractions in Beijing, Badaling is in many ways

a typical Chinese zoo.

Next to the main

slaughter arena is a restaurant where families can dine

on braised dog while watching cows and goats

being disembowelled by lions.

The zoo also encourages visitors to "fish" for

lions using live chickens as bait. For just £2,

giggling visitors tie terrified chickens onto bamboo

rods and dangle them in front of the lions, just as

a cat owner might tease their pet with a toy.

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During one visit, a woman managed to taunt

the big cats with a petrified chicken for five

minutes before a lion managed to grab the bird in

its jaws.

The crowd then applauded as the bird

flapped its wings pathetically in a futile bid to

escape. The lion eventually grew bored and

crushed the terrified creature to death.

The tourists were then herded onto buses and

driven through the lions' compound to watch an

equally cruel spectacle. The buses have specially

designed chutes down which you can push live

chickens and watch as they are torn to shreds.

Once again, children are encouraged to take

part in the slaughter.

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"It's almost a form of child abuse," says Carol

McKenna of the OneVoice animal welfare group.

"The cruelty of Chinese zoos is disgusting, but

think of the impact on the children watching it.

What kind of future is there for China if its

children think this kind of cruelty is normal?

"In China, if you love animals you want to kill

yourself every day out of despair."

But the cruelty of Badaling doesn't stop with animals apart. For those who

can still stomach it, the zoo has

numerous traumatised animals to gawp at.

A pair of endangered moon bears

with rusting steel nose rings are

chained up in cages so small that they

cannot even turn around.

One has

clearly gone mad and spends most of

its time shaking its head and bashing

into the walls of its prison.

There are numerous other creatures,

including tigers, which also appear to

have been driven insane by captivity.

Predictably, they are kept in cramped,

filthy conditions.

!Zoos like this make me want to

boycott everything Chinese," says

Emma Milne, star of the BBC's Vets In

Practice.

"I'd like to rip out everything

in my house that's made in China. I

have big problems with their culture.

"If you enjoy watching an animal die

then that's a sad and disgusting

reflection on you.

"Perhaps we shouldn't be

surprised by their behaviour towards

animals, as the value of human life is

so low in China."

East of Badaling lies the equally

horrific Qingdao zoo. Here, visitors can

take part in China's latest craze —

tortoise baiting.

Simply put, Chinese families now

gather in zoos to hurl coins at

tortoises.

Legend has it that if you hit

a tortoise on the head with a coin and

make a wish, then your heart's desire

will come true. It's the Chinese

equivalent of a village wishing well.

To feed this craze, tortoises are kept

in barbaric conditions inside small

bare rooms.

When giggling tourists

begin hurling coins at them, they

desperately try to protect themselves by

withdrawing into their shells.

But Chinese zoo keepers have discovered a

way round this: they wrap elastic

bands around the animals' necks to

stop them retracting their heads.

"Tortoises aren't exactly fleet of foot

and can't run away," says Carol

McKenna.

"It's monstrous that people

hurl coins at the tortoises, but

strapping their heads down with elastic

bands so they can't hide is even more

disgusting.

"Because tortoises can't scream,

people assume they don't suffer. But

they do. I can't bear to think what it

must be like to live in a tiny cell and have

people hurl coins at you all day long."

Even worse is in store for the animals

of Xiongsen Bear and Tiger Mountain

Village near Guilin in south-east China.

Here, live cows are fed to tigers to

amuse cheering crowds. During a

recent visit, I watched in horror as a

young cow was stalked and caught. Its

screams and cries filled the air as it

struggled to escape.

A wild tiger would dispatch its prey

within moments, but these beasts'

natural killing skills have been blunted by

years of living in tiny cages.

The tiger tried to kill — tearing and

biting at the cow's body in a

pathetic looking frenzy — but it simply didn't

know how.

Eventually, the keepers

broke up the contest and slaughtered

the cow themselves, much to

the disappointment of the crowd.

Although the live killing exhibition was undoubtedly depressing, an

equally disturbing sight lay around the

corner: the "animal parade".

Judging by the rest of the operation,

the unseen training methods are

unlikely to be humane, but what

visitors view is bad enough.

Tigers, bears

and monkeys perform in a degrading

"entertainment". Bears wear dresses,

balance on balls and not only ride

bicycles but mount horses too.

The showpiece is a bear riding a bike

on a high wire above a parade of tigers,

monkeys and trumpet-playing bears.

Astonishingly, the zoo also sells tiger

meat and wine produced from big cats

kept in battery-style cages.

Tiger meat

is eaten widely in China and the wine,

made from the crushed bones of the

animals, is a popular drink.

Although it is illegal, the zoo is quite

open about its activities. In fact, it

boasts of having 140 dead tigers in

freezers ready for the plate.

In the restaurant, visitors can dine on

strips of stir-fried tiger with ginger and

Chinese vegetables. Also on the menu

are tiger soup and a spicy red curry

made with tenderised strips of big cat.

And if all that isn't enough, you can

dine on lion steaks, bear's paw,

crocodile and several different species of

snake.

"Discerning" visitors can wash it all

down with a glass or two of vintage

wine made from the bones of Siberian

tigers.

The wine is made from the 1,300

or so tigers reared on the premises.

The restaurant is a favourite with

Chinese Communist Party officials who

often pop down from Beijing for the

weekend.

China's zoos claim to be centres for

education and conservation. Without

them, they say, many species would

become extinct.

This is clearly a fig leaf and some

would call it a simple lie. Many are no

better than "freak shows" from the

middle ages and some are no different to

the bloody tournaments of ancient

Rome.

"It's farcical to claim that these zoos

are educational," says Emma Milne.

"How can you learn anything about wild

animals by watching them pace up and

down inside a cage? You could learn far

more from a David Attenborough

documentary."

However pitiful the conditions might

be in China's zoos, there are a few

glimmers of hope.

It is now becoming

fashionable to own pets in China. The hope

is that a love for pets will translate into a

desire to help animals in general. This

does appear to be happening, albeit

slowly.

One recent MORI opinion poll

discovered that 90 per cent of Chinese

people thought they had "a moral

duty to minimise animal suffering".

Around 75 per cent felt that the law

should be changed to minimise

animal suffering as much as possible.

In 2004, Beijing proposed animal

welfare legislation which stipulated that

"no one should harass, mistreat or hurt

animals". It would also have banned

animal fights and live feeding shows.

The laws would have been a huge

step forward. But the proposals were

scrapped following stiff opposition

from vested interests and those who

felt China had more pressing concerns.

And this is the central problem for

animal welfare in China: its ruling elite

is brutally repressive and cares little

for animals.

Centuries of rule by

tyrannical emperors and bloody dictators

have all but eradicated the Buddhist

and Confucian respect for life and

nature.

As a result, welfare groups are urging

people not to go to Chinese zoos if they

should visit the Olympics, as virtually

every single one inflicts terrible

suffering on its animals

"They should tell the Chinese

Embassy why they are refusing to visit

these zoos,' says Carol McKenna of

OneVoice.

"If a nation is great enough

to host the Olympic Games then it is

great enough to be able to protect its

animals."