This picture taken on July 24, 2016 shows visitors taking photos of a polar bear inside its enclosure at the Grandview Mall Aquarium in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. A Chinese aquarium holding a forlorn-looking polar bear named Pizza said on September 20 it has "no need" for foreign interference, after activists offered to move the animal to a British zoo. / AFP / - (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)

Pizza, “the saddest polar bear in the world,” is said to have at least a short break from the “showcase” in which he lives in the Grandview shopping center in Guangzhou, southern China.

This is followed by a worldwide outcry, with one petition and one million signatures, and the joint efforts of 50 animal rights organizations in China.

This step is welcome news for all people concerned about the welfare of animals in general and the welfare of pizza in particular. Pizza showed what ethologists call “stereotypical behavior” – going back and forth, “shaking his head from side to side and sniffing and pawing at an air hole.” In short, whether out of boredom or stress, when he constantly flashes camera flashes in the eye or hits visitors to the windows of his enclosure, pizza seemed to be gradually losing his mind.

Pizzas misery is unfortunately not an isolated case. Even in more formal zoos and aquariums, social beings who are used to walking far, climbing high, or flying high, are often alone and isolated, in spaces too small to meet their basic needs, and where they are either too much attention of the wrong kind, or experience indifference or neglect. Like pizza, these animals wander restlessly and endlessly through their bare enclosures or spend their days in despair, turned face to the wall.


Pizza was taken to the zoo in Tianjin near Beijing, where he was once born. However, the mall spokesman said that he will come back as soon as the bear’s enclosure has been renovated. Qin Xiaona, director of Beijing Animal Welfare Association and one of the main voices in favor of pizza, said to the three-year-old bear, “It’s a good decision, the right decision for pizza, but it is not final. Temporarily is not good enough. ”



She’s right – and that’s not just pizza. What he and the 500 other species Grandview hosts is room to roam, a chance to be with their fellows, and an opportunity to express their natural behavior – to seek, hunt, hunt down a partner to hide and play, in other words: (at least something) to be free.

If, for whatever reason, they can not survive in the wild, they should be withdrawn to protected areas in regions that are climate and geographic appropriate.

When nature is made into a commodity
It is, however, what we want and need for strange, profit-seeking, bipedal primates that are probably the most baffled and disturbed. In all societies we are attracted to charismatic wildlife such as bears, lions, wolves, tigers, eagles and others. These top predators have exerted their talisman power beyond our imagination, perhaps even before our species began to consider themselves separated from them (and superior to them). We long for their physical energy, their “otherness,” their fearsome strength and unusual grace, as well as their (compared to our) more advanced senses such as smell and hearing.

No matter if these animals live in zoos and aquariums or in this special shopping center, we only wish to have this closeness in order to deprive them of everything powerful and savage. We want them to acknowledge us, but not in a manner that demands something from us except our entertainment, amusement, and our desire to exercise control over them in their captive state.

Grandview’s placement of pizza and other animals in his mall is not just clever marketing. It is rather a symbol of the objectification and marketing of nature by the global consumer society.

In this context, animals and nature only have value if they can be used profitably.

Pizza, whose name characteristically describes its identity as something consumable, is virtually demoted to another exhibit in the midst of all the goods for sale in the mall.

It’s another product that allows shoppers to spend one or two fun, hilarious or carefree minutes before moving on to another distraction.

Grandview has incorporated pizza into its replacement winter landscape because management feared losing buyers to online retailers. In other words, it took a bit of nature to rip people off the Internet and get them to visit the real mall. (How many more shopping malls in China or anywhere else will it mimic?) But what do most people do when faced with the living, breathing and feeling bear? They go back to yet another screen to turn that creature into the camera in their cell phones, from Pizza’s real existence in his unnatural reality in the store to their digital world.

The biggest irony might lie in the possible interpretation that the lonely picket of pizza in a miniature landscape reflects the climate crisis that is typically pictured today by the iconic representation of a lonely polar bear on a dwindling ice floe. In this sense, the disappearance of pizza into the virtual world indicates the disappearance of millions of other species because humanity has so far failed collectively to act decisively to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Qin Xiaona’s observation that “temporarily is not enough” could go far beyond the fate of pizza and other captive animals like him. It could be a call to the collection to prevent or even reverse our seemingly insatiable destruction of this unique Blue Planet that is our home and millions of other species.
They need, like us, a safe space without being made object and exposed to destruction in which we all can breathe and be the unbound, self-determined beings we once were and could be again.


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Known by a few names, such as African Pheasant and Guinea Hens, one could also call this African native the “Tick Assassin.”

In their homeland, these loud and prehistoric-looking fowl follow around the grazing herds and reportedly eat up to 4000 ticks a day.

Guinea fowl are relatively low maintenance. In the summertime, guinea will forage all of their food. They eat ticks, fleas, crickets, mosquitos, slugs, grasshoppers and small rodents (basically anything they can get their beaks on) without destroying the yard or garden as chickens do. Flocks of guineas have been known to eat snakes. They also love to eat weeds. A bit of feed in the coop will encourage them to come home at night. Coops can be provided, although flocks will find homes high in treetops, away from the threat of raccoons.

They are also free from most diseases that plague other poultry. They will give warning calls when unknown guests arrive, which helps to protect other farm animals. Their call will also keep unwanted rodents away.

Guinea fowl manure can be added to your compost and is a wonderful addition to nurturing the soil where your food is grown. Your plants will thrive.

Guineas are known for their hardiness, being able to withstand both hot and cold.

While not laying as often as chickens, guinea eggs may still be collected and eaten. Guineas tend to make their nests in hidden areas, so finding their eggs may be an adventure.


When starting your guinea flock, it’s best to buy them from keets (babies) so they will know where home is. Imported adult guineas will wander off.

If you have nearby neighbors, it’s best to check in with them, as their squawking can be unbearable for some. However, given their reputation as tick assassins, having them in the neighborhood can be a helpful, healthy alternative to pesticides if you are living in a tick-ridden area.

Bear in mind that guinea meat is also a known delicacy, so if you start your flock and someone complains, you can also have guinea stew.

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Minnesota is asking homeowners to turn their lawns into prairie to help bring back the bees


Minnesota just allocated nearly a million dollars in incentives for people to transform their lawns into bee-friendly wildflowers, clover and native grasses.

The state is asking citizens to stop spraying herbicide, stop mowing so often, and let their lawns re-wild into a more natural state.

The goal is to provide “food sources for pollinators of all kinds, but will specifically aim at saving the rusty patched bumblebee, a fat and fuzzy species on the brink of extinction that seems to be making its final stand in the cities of the Upper Midwest,” the Star Tribune reports.

Research has shown bumblebees are particularly important to the region, as they vibrate at frequency that unlocks pollen other insects can’t reach.

The loss of native prairies and forests across the country has made pollinators more dependent on urban and suburban lawn flowers, says James Wolfin, a bee habitat researcher at University of Minnesota.

His research has focused on “bee lawns” – grassy yards interspersed with small flowers such as Dutch white clover, creeping thyme, self heal, ground plum and dandelions.


The flowers make excellent food source for bees, while being cheap to plant and easy maintain.

“A pound of Dutch white clover is about $7 and it grows low enough that people wouldn’t even have to change the way they mow their lawn,” Wolfin
told the Star Tribune.

Around 55 of Minnesota’s 350 bee species depend on white clover alone, he notes.



“So just by not treating white clover like a weed and letting it grow in a yard provides a really powerful resource for nearly 20% of the bee species in the state,” Wolfin said.


The program is set to begin in spring of 2020.

Citizens living in rusty patch bumblebee zones are eligible for grants up to $500, while people living in zones of secondary and tertiary importance to bees are eligible for $350 and $150 respectively.

Considering a 1-pound bag of clover seeds costs as little as $10, and spreads “like a weed,” that should be plenty to cover it.

In fact, letting your lawn go to the bees is so easy, those of us living outside Minnesota might want to consider joining in the effort!

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Pakita was found wandering the streets when she was eventually brought to Argentina’s El Arca Animal Partido de Mar Chiquita.