During the Qingming holiday just past, some people lined up in Shanghai for "Crazy Zoo", and some people lined up for Hongshan Zoo in Nanjing.
On the first day of the holiday on April 4, the crowd in Nanjing Hongshan Zoo was too crowded, and the director Shen Zhijun had to direct order at the scene. In the evening, the official issued a speed restriction announcement: the maximum number of people entering the park is 80,000, the number of people in the park is limited to 40,000, and the operation of self-service escorts is suspended. This data is comparable to the average daily passenger flow of Shanghai Disneyland.
In 2020, when Hongshan Zoo was closed for 51 days due to the epidemic and its income returned to zero, Shen Zhijun gave a famous speech of "asking for revenge" (a retaliatory rebound in the number of visitors to the park). Today, Nanjing Hongshan Zoo has undoubtedly become the top in China.
Why can a zoo make tourists so crazy? How did this zoo, which was once famous for being "poor," transform into a top-notch zoo? With these questions in mind, this reporter went to Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo with the army of tourists to find out.
On the first day of the holiday on April 4, the Redhill Zoo was crowded with people. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
"Revenge" zoo
Hongshan Zoo is located in the north of Nanjing, near Xuanwu Lake, and the ticket price of 40 yuan has not increased for 14 years.
At 9 o'clock in the morning, after the reporter entered the park from the north gate, he was greeted by a long queue one after another, queuing up to take the tour bus, queuing to enter the panda pavilion, and even taking a photo with "Biye" Dudu. People can't help but sigh: Red Mountain is really on fire!
Lemur Island, a must-pass place for tourists to enter the park, breeder Mr. Xu wears a microphone and provides "park entry training" for passing tourists: "In Hongshan, animals are the owners, everyone is the guests, they have the right not to 'pick up guests', and we must also keep in mind the agreement not to feed the animals." ”
In the face of the crowd outside the stadium, the animals of Red Mountain should still eat and sleep, and do not need to provide any "emotional value" for humans, because they have the "right not to be seen".
Every animal at the Red Hill Zoo has its own name. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
In Red Mountain, animals are not kept in cages, they have plenty of space to explore, and they can "take a walk-and-go" trip in rockeries, caves, forests, and pools at any time. The air passage of the feline hall is the daily "commute" of tigers, and in the Asian primate hall, monkeys can "visit each other" through skewer cages made of soft net.
In Red Mountain, every animal has its own name, and they are beautiful, healthy and confident. The three-legged leopard "Yue Yue" loves to explore and move quickly, the white-faced monk-faced monkey "Du Du", the faceless man in "Spirited Away", can amuse everyone with a casual glance, and the thin-tailed mongoose "Anonymous" is still full of yearning for the sunbathing of his next-door neighbor although he is occasionally bullied......
The star animal of Hongshan Zoo, "Du Du", is a white-faced monk-faced monkey. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
In front of the window, you can occasionally see hand-painted reminder signs by the staff: "Please keep a pelican distance", "I am a red panda, not a little raccoon", and "Tiger glass can't be photographed". On the popular science board, the animal's personal ID photo, age at the park, personality differences, growth dynamics, and even obituaries are recorded.
Guo Pengyang, a post-95 Nanjing citizen, is a Hongshan Zoo annual card user, holding a telephoto camera and trying to squeeze out a vacant seat for a lens in the crowd. He recalls that when he was a child, the animals in Red Mountain were not so lively, and there were not so many tourists.
"It's really hot now, and there are tourists all over the country during the holidays. Maybe everyone has come to 'revenge' the zoo!"
On the evening of April 5, Hongshan Zoo once again issued an announcement on the restriction of traffic, and Shen Zhijun, the director of the zoo, appealed to and thanked the citizens of Nanjing for giving up the play space for friends from other places. According to the Nanjing smart tourism big data operation monitoring platform, during the three-day Qingming holiday in 2024, Hongshan Zoo will rank fourth among the city's scenic spots in terms of visitor reception, second only to Confucius Temple, Zhongshan and Xuanwu Lake, and the reception volume will hit a record high.
The "Self-Help" trilogy
Even if you can't come to the scene, it's fun to turn on your phone and "visit the zoo in the cloud".
During the Qingming holiday, Hongshan did a total of 6 live broadcasts, and popular venues such as Lemur Island, Koala Pavilion, Red Panda Pavilion, and Wolf Pavilion were online for business. In the live broadcast room, the red panda probes its head and sticks out its tongue to you to sell cuteness, koalas sleep enough and occasionally do free pull-ups, and the meerkats roll happily on the lawn. "It's so healing!" "I can watch koalas all day" "An hour and a half is too short, it is recommended to add a bell" "Is there a shortage of volunteers at the zoo......?" On the mobile phone side, the barrage is constantly swiping.
On the morning of April 4, the reporter met Xiao Wei, who had just gotten off the air, on Lemur Island, holding a camera and a stand in one hand, a mobile phone in the other, and a live broadcast transmitter behind her. "Xiaozi is on a business trip, and I've been on the air since the 24th. When he comes back, under normal circumstances, he broadcasts for one day and I broadcast for one day. At this time, she has broadcast nearly 20 consecutive live broadcasts, and she is still full of vitality.
Xiao Wei told reporters that except for Tuesdays, Hongshan will do two live broadcasts every day, and the live animals will not be repeated during the week. "Bilibili users like to see areas with rich species such as native species conservation areas and Gondwana districts. Xiaohongshu and Douyin users like to watch koalas, capybaras and other 'star animals'. ”
Xiao Wei, the live broadcast narrator of Hongshan Zoo. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
Today, Hongshan Live has become a spiritual healing place for many urbanites, and it used to be a lifesaver for Hongshan Zoo.
In 2020, Hongshan Zoo, which "lost more than 30 million yuan" and "deducted employee performance to ensure animal feed", seized the live broadcast outlet and opened up the "Cloud Park" mode, which was the first time that Hongshan Zoo was "out of the circle".
In order to make this self-help movement more sustainable, Hongshan launched "Cloud Adoption" in 2021. For a time, the legal adoption of a tiger and a red panda has become a social currency for young people, and even many fans have arranged cloud adoption for their idols.
Capybara Capibala is one of the most popular cloud adoption. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
Immediately afterwards, Hongshan Zoo tested the waters of cultural creativity, and launched a series of peripherals such as refrigerator magnets, party dolls, hats, square scarves, and environmental protection bags. Let the young people shout: "40 yuan in, 400 yuan out!" No one can go home empty-handed. From 2022 to 2023, we have also joined hands with Heytea and Hema for cross-border marketing to continuously amplify the IP of Hongshan Zoo.
In the Hongshan Forest Market, everyone is rushing to buy dolls. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
Xiao Liang, director of the Modern Business Research Center of Zhejiang Gongshang University, believes that Hongshan Zoo focuses on the concept of respecting animals and maximizes products and services, which has aroused the humanistic and emotional resonance of young people and realized the transformation of traffic.
"Hongshan Zoo has made every animal into a small IP under the big IP of Hongshan Zoo. There are both big selling points and small topics, which can continue to circulate and extend to cultural and creative products, constituting a matrix of cultural IP. This kind of extreme product and service concept is worth thinking about and learning. ”
According to official online ticketing statistics, in 2023, more than 60% of visitors will purchase tickets at Hongshan Forest Zoo, of which 60.21% will be between 20 and 30 years old, and 29.57% will be between 30 and 40 years old.
Why do animals take precedence?
Of course, the reason why Hongshan Zoo has been out of the circle for a long time is that it respects animals and puts animals first in everything, and builds a utopia of an ideal life for animals.
Shen Zhijun once said: "The zoo is not a place to spend money to see animals, but a place to learn to look at animals." ”
Hongshan Zoo is the first zoo in China to cancel animal shows. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
Many people may not know that Hongshan Zoo was the first zoo in China to cancel animal performances, and in 2014 they canceled animal feeding. Since 2017, they have removed the cages and redesigned the arena so that the animals have hills, lakes and streams. In addition, Hongshan Zoo will also rescue about 1,000 injured animals every year, and conduct a survival assessment after recovery, and release the animals that pass the assessment into the wild, and the animals that do not pass the assessment will stay in Hongshan for "retirement".
"In Hongshan, you will find that the road taken by people is not wide, but the living environment of animals is quite broad. This actually tells us that animals are also an important part of environmental protection and sustainable development. In a living environment that is closer to nature, such as Red Mountain, animals can also show more natural behavior. ”
Chen Chuanwu, an associate professor at the School of Life Sciences of Nanjing Normal University, pointed out that animals play many roles in our daily lives, and the first thing to do is to respect the rights and interests of each individual, and it is a very important responsibility for us humans to treat wild animals correctly.
The obituary of Weasel's sister. Photo by Zhan Huiwen and Lin Xiao
After coming out of Red Mountain, the reporter has been thinking about why young people are now full of enthusiasm for visiting zoos. On the one hand, it is relaxing and healing, and on the other hand, perhaps because of the temperature of life. We often imagine nature and distant places, but we ignore the connection with life, and the land under our feet was once a place where wild animals lived.
When the city is rapidly expanding and people and wild animals inevitably intersect and intersect, how to get along with them in a friendly way? Nanjing Hongshan Zoo has set a correct example.
In his book "Visiting a Zoo is a Serious Thing", the author of animal science popularization, Hua Yi wrote: A good zoo will not only allow visitors to gain pleasure and knowledge, but also reflect all the gains and insights in the improvement of daily behavior, and this behavior change will reduce the pressure on the environment, so that humans and these lovely wild animals can survive on the earth for a longer time.
Source: CCTV