As Christmas approaches, I hope that we can make a statement against the barbaric, stone-aged, animals in entertainment practices (masked as zoos) in some countries, while at the same time having a great time.

There are many fruits, like mandarin oranges, and so much general merchandise imported from countries, like China and Korea, where horrors are perpetrated on animals. I intend to boycott mandarin oranges (if they come from these countries) and Chinese and Korean merchandise in general.

I visited five zoos with the International Primate Protection League http://ippl.org/> when I went to a conference in Beijing, China in August 2002.

We were mainly checking on primate conditions (atrocious) and looking into illegal trades. People were actually giving a lone, demented chimpanzee in Beijing Zoo cigarettes to smoke, feeding him trash and taunting him viciously. There seems to be a total disrespect for the animals by zoo visitors.

Two of the most horrifying zoos were the Badeling Safari Park, which lies in the shadow of the Great Wall, and the one in Guilin- Xiongsheng Bear and Tiger Entertainment City. Both of them draw large crowds, as they do live feedings. In Badeling, you're on a bus and tourists pay to buy chickens to feed to the tigers and dogs. Revolting. The chickens are thrown out of the bus window. In Guilin, they are supposedly training tigers for a return to the wild, but none have ever been released. They are fed live buffaloes to the great delight of onlookers- in a twice-a-day spectacle, which goes on for ages as the tigers are not skilled at dealing with prey.

You have to try anything to deal with these awful situations for animals.

Warning - pictures of animals being attacked and consumed by tigers.

Photos taken at Chinese zoos