I look forward to pics and a review from your visit.
I wasn’t able to visit this place sooner since at the time I was studying for my TELC exam. Since I am finally done with it I decided to visit this facility as soon as I could. I started writing this review minutes after getting out so here’s my review.
Before I start I do want to share another observation that was overdue. The night this post was made
@conservationistdude and I were discussing about this place. The structure this park was built on seemed familiar until we both noticed an individual one of the two instagram pages follows that goes by zoomurat. The man basically poses with big cats and seems to have taken footage at Russian animal breders which have at least one dubious holding. This sort of explains the lion statues by the entrance of the park.
After a journey that took over 1 hour and three rides I first entered the Kanuni Sultan Süleyman city forest, a recreational park, which the bird park was located near the entrance of the greater park. Before entering the park I was greeted with two mesh pens. One with a dozing medium sized dog while the other had the most artificial waterfall and a couple of lion statues displaying a breed of chicken I couldn’t identify. I bought my ticket, grabbed a couple brochures, and entered the facility.
After paying for my entrance I entered the park which was simply put a ring of concrete enclosures and a few buildings surrounding what looks like a garden that was netted over. The holes if the nets were large enough to permit sparrows to enter. The garden was full of tacky props some of which seem to function as photo props. In the center was the concession stand of the zoo. I was greeted with a common raven on a stump and on my right was a great Dane surrounded by a few people one of them most likely being a keeper. I had small talk with the keeper while petting the dog.
I then turned towards right and started to check the first set of enclosures which had glass barriers which was the only thing that made it distinct from the other sections of the park. The enclosures were not interesting to say the least. They were all basically concrete boxes with branches with most of the animals not having their food served on the floor instead of a bowl. While the enclosured did have a back room area which most of the birds were using, there were questionable sights such as holes and exposed cables. The signs do not help this park at all with them only matching to one species at a time, poorly translated, or not matching at all. This is also why I did not take too much photos since when you see one enclosure you basically saw all enclosures.
The second set of enclosures had their walls covered with bamboos and straw. Unlike the first set they had mesh barriers instead of glass barriers. This section was predominantly filled with chickens and pigeons but had the occasional exotics including violaceous turaco, western plantain eater, red-billed chough, and green pigeon. The thing that surprised me about the turacos and plantain eaters was that there was a small handful that were outside at the garden while a greater number of them in the concrete cages making congested for the birds.
The straw section was finished off by a building that had guest bathrooms along with some other doors. This was followed by the third section which lacked both glass barriers and straw walls. This section was for the most part held injured native birds of prey and mynahs along with some domestic cats and a couple rarities that I myself didn’t expect seeing. Since most of the birds here are larger, there were many walls in the enclosures that was caked with urate and feces.
Before I was done with this section a man with a sulphur crested cockatoo came and offered me to have the cockatoo on my shoulder. I accepted the offer and continued looking at the enclosures before the man offered me a picture with the cockatoo. I than asked the man if he was the manager of the zoo which he said yes. I followed up with a question about the drongos and the Indian roller which the man had lagging answers. However he seemed determined to get new species for the park. The man asked another staff if the birds I saw were drongos. He later went into one of the rooms by the guest bahrooms, grabbed a tray of superworms and tossed them to the ground. The drongos(?) seemed eager to grab a worm and fly away quickly. I took a video of the feeding and checked out the grassy area and pond before making a second round whilst being harassed by the raven I saw in the entrance of the park who wanted my shoe-laces.
If I had to give a conclusion, despite the nice lifers I saw, this park has glaring flaws with regards to inadequate exhibitry, underwhelming signage, and shady connections. The zoo is tough to visit anyways with either Istanbul's ridiculous traffic or the need to use multiple rides of public transport making it time consuming. I also do not know if this place will ever improve in the future.
Species list will be posted later tonight.
