Allow Exco Player content
This content is provided by Exco Player and may use cookies or similar technologies. Please click 'Allow and Continue' below to load the content.
A Chinese shopping mall which is home to the "world's saddest polar bear" is planning to expand its zoo.
The Guangzhou Grandview Aquarium said it wanted to take in giant pandas among thousands of other animals.
The aquarium – housed inside a shopping mall - faced backlash after heart-breaking footage emerged of Pizza the bear staring glumly from his cramped enclosure went viral.
Half a million people signed a petition, set up by Animals Asia, to have the “world’s saddest zoo” closed down.
A UK wildlife park's offer to rehouse the bear was recently dismissed.
The mall is now planning to build an extension, measuring 5,900 sq m, which will house pandas and white tigers among other animals, the BBC reported.
It is already home to beluga whales, walrus calves, a wolf and arctic foxes.
Dave Neals, welfare director at Animals Asia, said: "It concerns me that they're trying to house any large mammals within the shopping centre.
"I don't believe there would be enough space or that they would be able to provide adequately for those animals.”
Read More
The owners of the indoor zoo insist they have made improvements to the park since July.
But Animals Asia said conditions were still cramped, with "nothing natural".
The mall said it had submitted its expansion plans to the authorities, and hopes to finish building work by 2017.