Gokatsuraike Animal Park

Gokatsuraike Animal Park is a small zoo located in the town of Taki, Mie prefecture. The zoo initially opened at 1993 as the “Flower and Animal Interaction Square” and had larger species such as tiger and African elephant. The park did face a great decline throughout the years in terms of animal species, visitor numbers, and facility deterioration. Covid 19 didn’t help with this either.

Despite the decrease of visitor numbers the towns people still wanted the zoo to stay open, so the park closed down for a year and was renovated before opening to the public again. However, parts of the park weren’t able to be renovated due to the rise of costs. The zoo is under the management of Fumihiko Takahashi, whose experience with wildlife comes from being one of the founding staff of Yokohama Zoorasia and his work with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). One year after reopening, the park became a member of JAZA.

The animal park has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise ten million Yen for the following:

• Improving the caracal enclosure to meet breeding conditions for the wild cats. Caracals are a local rarity in Japan with only two on display in Japan. The zoo also wants to collect data to help improve breeding the species and hopefully provide information about in situ conservation.
• A new enclosure for oriental white storks. While this species is not found in Mie prefecture, they are found in the Kii peninsula (which Mie is a part of.)
• Giving the ring-tailed lemurs a better enclosure that takes their age in to account as well as natural furnishings such as soil and foliage.

The fundraiser will end in December 2. The park schedules to finish the construction of these projects before spring 2026.

The campaign also has a stretch goal for 25 million Yen for:

• An improved enclosure for its Bennet’s wallabies.
• Enclosures for servals and Amur leopard cats.
• Purchase of equipment and maintenance costs.

The crowdfunding page does show a map of these projects along with some other projects for the future that are not a part of this campaign such as sand cats, Pallas’s cats, and Japanese serows.

Link for the crowdfunding campaign, for anyone interested and able to pay:
https://readyfor.jp/projects/gokatsurazoo

Personally I find the initiative admirable. I love it when a zoo knows how it wants to grow and shares its plans. However I have a few bones to pick with the desire to obtain new species while there are animals that are in less than desirable enclosures. You can already see the capybara enclosure in the campaign page, which looks more appropriate for pond turtles or as an extension of the pheasant and giant salamander enclosure next to it. There are a lot of reptiles and small mammals in unacceptable enclosures, and them being used as “ambassadors”/for encounters does not justify the poor enclosures. I hope that there’s something I missed on the masterplan for them as well.

PossumRoach said:

Improving the caracal enclosure to meet breeding conditions for the wild cats. Caracals are a local rarity in Japan with only two on display in Japan. The zoo also wants to collect data to help improve breeding the species and hopefully provide information about in situ conservation.

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The park currently houses a female caracal named Jina/Gina. Director Takahashi posted a tweet of the male scheduled to arrive to the park which actually makes me more concerned about the feasibility of the project than relieved.

The male scheduled to be sent to Gokatsuraike is from a broker which imported the animal from South Africa in 2010! Not only is this animal likely to be post reproductive, he is probably maladapted to be put on a breeding situation since he spent more than a decade in what seems like a dank concrete cage.

Director Takahashi did respond to a twitter user, being aware of the new caracal’s post reproductive state, and said that he plans to collaborate with universities and research institutions and attempt collecting semen, cryopreservation, and artificial insemination.

I am neither Japanese, a zoo director, nor a Japanese zoo director, so I understand that my comments sound easier said than done, especially when I don’t have any experience managing a zoo. But I hope that the director also plans on seeking help from zoos outside of Japan that have experience breeding small wild cats such as Nashville and Lumigny. I also feel like resorting to AI is likely to end up being more expensive than importing a new caracal from abroad, even one that’s unfortunately being resold by a broker (which wouldn’t be the park’s first time if that’s ever the case)…

To be honest, I didn't know there were only two zoos in Japan that keep caracals. (Another one is probably Himeji City Zoo, but the conditions there are poor.)

captain alligator said:

To be honest, I didn't know there were only two zoos in Japan that keep caracals. (Another one is probably Himeji City Zoo, but the conditions there are poor.)

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ZTL lists Ōchiyama and Fukuyama as well both of which I believe lost the species some time ago. North Safari Sapporo also used to keep a caracal, but they ended up giving her to a trader, which is how Jia ended up Replacing Mac at Gokatsuraike.

As the park reaches nearly sixty percent of its initial crowdfunding goal, the director has oosted an update showing the areas designated to be renovated into new enclosures. The current ringtail lemur enclosure will be converted into a caracal holding area. The storks will be kept in a former duck pond after it gets renovated and naturalized. The lemurs will be kept in a cage that looks like it used to keep large carnivores and goats. The plans are to add soil and more climbing platforms for the lemurs to utilize. The update has pictures of the enclosure as they are.

https://readyfor.jp/projects/gokatsurazoo/announcements/404449

Kobe Animal Kingdom has revealed that it will be sending female sand cat Jiu and female manul Mei to Gokatsuraike Animal Park. A strange move since these species are not a part of the crowdfunding campaign, which hasn’t even reached its first goal, let alone the stretch goals.

神戸どうぶつ王国

PossumRoach said:

The fundraiser will end in December 2.

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Turns out I did an error while writing this. The fundraiser ends in December 26, otherwise it would have ended sooner, which wouldn’t be great.

The animal park was able to reach its initial goal. This is an important milestone, because if the fundraiser wasn’t able to reach the goal, even by one Yen, the zoo would be obligated to return the funds to people who donated. So now the projects for the caracals, storks, and lemurs are safe. The schedule for the projects go in the following order:

• The lemur enclosure should be ready by February.
• The male caracal should arrive by March.
• And the stork enclosure should be ready by April with the arrival of a breeding pair.

There is another detail that I missed which I wish I saw sooner. If the animal park is able to achieve a budget that surpasses 25 million yen, the park can focus on either of the following projects:

• Renovation of restrooms
• Taking in Japanese pond turtles
• Taking in Japanese wild boar (a species the zoo had until recently)
• Taking in mandrills
• Renovation of animal enclosures

Again, it’s great to see a little zoo dream big. I just hope that new enclosures for the reptiles, meerkats, prairie dogs, and capybaras counts as a renovation. I don’t want to be a nit-picking Debbie downer, but it would be ironic if the zoo to promote animal welfare while most species have underwhelming enclosures.

PossumRoach said:

Kobe Animal Kingdom has revealed that it will be sending female sand cat Jiu and female manul Mei to Gokatsuraike Animal Park. A strange move since these species are not a part of the crowdfunding campaign, which hasn’t even reached its first goal, let alone the stretch goals.

神戸どうぶつ王国

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The animal park did share some images of the enclosures for sand and Pallas’s cats. Needless to say, these enclosures don’t look very appealing.

https://x.com/gokatsuraikezoo/status/1996143720673210716?s=46

The animal park published a video of a brief tour of the park, along with the dilapidated areas that will be renovated and made into enclosures for new species. It’s an interesting tour since director Takahashi is also mentioning animals some of these enclosures used to hold such as Himalayan moon bear, jackal, and tiger. Some animal species are still kept in these enclosures as behind the scenes such as macaque, wild boar, and goats. In addition to species already mentioned on the thread (serval, leopard cat, serow), director Takahashi also revealed plans for red pandas (as expected from a JAZA facility), shoebill (good luck with that), fennec fox, and yellow spotted rock hyrax. The latter two additions are a bit concerning cons The fact that they were mentioned alongside while the enclosure that would later become the sand cat enclosure. That enclosure is already small and fragmented for sand cats, so it would be a husbandry nightmare if those row of enclosures end up housing more species.