Batu Secret Zoo Batu Secret Zoo news

Some bunch of news from yesterday short visit to Batu Secret Zoo:
New animal babies, all born in January 2023
- 1 Black eared Marmoset
- 2 Javan Muntjack
- 2 Babirusa, it's first successful breeding after few years break. Father is male brought from Surabaya Zoo in late 2021 and mother is female born in Batu in 2014
- 1 Mandrill
Exhibits:
- there is some works on artificial rocks in Giraffe exhibit, animals for bigger part of day stay in holding house.
- aviary of Rhinoceros Hirnbills (next to Proboscis) is under demolition. It will be replaced by new one.
- African Village will be closed for visitors on 30th January. After demolishing existing cages and build new one in new form whole new complex will be open just before Idul Fitri holiday in mid May 2023
- I have heard rumors that Beaver and Muflon exhibits will be demolished as well. Those two exhibits will be replaced by quite big aviary for marmosets, Sloth, Capybara and Ocelot.
Visitors will observe animals from elevated bridge going through whole new exhibit and from temple like viewing point that from where will be possible to see capybara swimming.
Unfortunately, nobody knows when construction works will start.
Planned new exhibit (very needed) for Pygmy hippos and Mandrils is still under question mark.

Will BSZ acquire wolves in the future?
 
I don't think so, there is not enough space for that species.
Javan Dholes are in plans.

I see, since canids are pretty rare in Indonesian zoos. AFAIK BSZ kept fennec and bat-eared foxes and Prigen once kept maned wolves. Some private keepers in Indonesia kept raccoon dogs and even a timber wolf (Alshad Ahmad).
 
Some small update from today's visit:

- New African Village is in final stage of decoration works. Whole are will be open for Idul Fitri holidays.

- Rhinoceros Hornbill aviary is finished. Birds are already moved in.

- Otters that lives together with Sun Bears received nice pool with is situated close to glass viewing in hotel restaurant.

- I saw 4 baby meerkats in old exhibit next to Elephants. And new born twins of Pygmy marmosets in primate zone.

I heard from keepers that 2 weeks ago a male Nile hippo and two males of Watusi cattle left Batu zoo to Lembang Park Zoo to live in new Safari area there.
It's pretty surprising that Batu decided to send their hippo to new zoo with no bigger experience in keeping big herbivores. But I heard that new Safari is large and have modern design.
 
Batu Secret Zoo has signed a MoU with Malaysia's Malacca Zoo, which include knowledge exchange (KE) and also animal exchange, where Batu gave an Bengal tiger in exchange for Melaka's Indochinese leopard.

Batu Secret Zoo has apparently worked with BKSDA in the care and evacuation of a a group of chitals from Probolinggo. No further information was given regarding what facility this deers came from and why they were evacuated.

The renovation of the African Village has finished, looking quite fresh. Not sure if there's any new additions but some previous inhabitants most likely remained, which include grey parrot, dwarf mongooses, banded mongooses, meerkats, Cape ground squirrel, and others.
Batu Secret Zoo on Instagram: "Welcome to The New Pasar Afrika! Setelah direnovasi total, akhirnya Pasar Afrika siap menyambut Sobat Lestari dengan tampilan baru dan koleksi satwa-satwa dari Afrika! Yuk, lihat video before afternya! Explore The New Pasar Afrika only in @batusecretzoo.official #jatimparkaja #jatimpark #jatimpark2 #batusecretzoo"
 
I visited Batu Secret Zoo last Saturday (08/7) and have several comments and updates.

It was my first ever visit to Batu Secret Zoo and was genuinely impressed with the landscaping of the park, there were so many different views and "immersions". I generally really enjoyed the park and am of the view that most of the enclosures are (more than adequate), with some exceptions such as the pygmy hippos exhibit which in my view is way too small.

To me, some of the highlights were:
1. The three level view of the proboscis monkey exhibit. The amount of vantage points were phenomenal, ranging from mesh viewing to glass viewing inside the traditional 'hut', to the underwater viewing for the arowanas. However I do wonder whether the privacy that the monkeys have is sufficient, as I did not see an area in which the proboscis monkeys may hide during the zoo opening times.

2. The pair of giant otters, Chico and Tibagi, both of whom were originally from the Singapore Zoo/River Wonder. They have a relatively large enclosure for 2 giant otters, which they share with a species of monkey which I was unable to properly identify. The only comment I would have regarding this exhibit would be that the water in the underwater viewing area is extremely cloudy/murky.

3. The brown grizzly bear exhibit which is home to: Apollon (male) and Diana (female). I read that they recently got an upgrade to their current 500sqm home, which to me was quite nice. There's also a nice underwater viewing area (albeit with murky waters), and a chainlink area where guests can pay 10k Rupiah to feed the bears a banana with a stick. Regarding the latter, I do think that from a welfare perspective, it would be much better if the chainlink area could be used in a more educational manner, such as just keeper talks and keeper feeding as I do have some concerns with how the people may treat the bears. I got a chance to have a short talk with the bear's keeper and found out that (unfortunately) Apollon and Diana are blood-related and thus BSZ does not have any plans for breeding.

4. The new African village is super well designed and neat, and was home to several small mammals. The highlight to me was the red river hog exhibits which they shared with a species of monkey (which again I was unable to properly identify). It is quite refreshing to see how BSZ tries to mix these two species into one exhibit.

Besides the above, I also have several not so positive comments/updates about BSZ:
1. Throughout my visit, I found that several of the access gates to the exhibits were not padlocked, or the double door outside the access gates were left open. I understand and saw that these were for exhibits which held "less-threatening" animals, but I think this is still a breach of SOP and is not really secure.

2. I was also quite disappointed about the lack of either zoo staff, keepers, or educators around the exhibits to educate or answers visitor's questions. This was quite a contrast to my last visit to Taman Safari Bogor where nearly all the exhibits past the Safari Journey had a keeper/educator on standby who would educate guests and answer any questions. In BSZ, I found that keepers or staff would only standby when its the time to "sell" the feeding sessions; in my case, I only saw staff at the Lion and Grizzly Bear Feeding.

3. Regarding Maya the snow leopard. Well, this is more of a question than an update I guess. Initially, I visited Maya's outdoor exhibit and weirdly found that it was being inhabited by what looked like a Bobcat. I then checked Maya's indoor exhibit and found that it was empty. This raised my curiosity as Maya was one of the key highlights I wanted to see at BSZ. As such, I asked a zoo staff who was walking through the tiger exhibit and he informed me that Maya the snow leopard had died recently. Not sure of such answer, I asked the keeper at the Grizzly Bear exhibit and he said that the information I received earlier was not true, and Maya the snow leopard was being moved to the "Safari Farm" area. Unfortunately due to the very long lines, I did not get to go in the "Safari Farm" area to confirm this. Does anyone have any information on Maya?

That concludes my short update and report (and my first post in this forum which I have been silently reading for quite some time HAHA). Looking forward to any discussions.
 
A better yet incomplete look at the zoo's newly refurbished African Village, now with a more modern exhibits.

Species include (In exhibit order):
  • Banded mongoose
  • Red river hog + mona monkey
  • African spurred tortoise + Cape ground squirrel + rock hyrax
  • Fennec fox
Other animals like meerkats might be present but not shown in the video.

IMP:
I don't really understand Batu Secret Zoo's fixation on copyrighted cartoon animals, definitely some odd design choice that are one of the many aspect that I think killed the modern zoo vibe of Batu. It feels more like a amusement park than what they call a "modern zoo".

Reference (Starting from 9:56):
 
Does anyone know about Batu's plan to import female takins from Tokyo? And where are their male takins exhibited?
Aside from the import from Czechia, no idea and there's not really more update about Batu's takin that we know of since that Czech import.

It's said that they're planning to display them in the currently bontebok exhibit, but again no update as of January 2024.
 
So I'm completely unfamiliar with the Batu Secret Zoo but I have quite an interest on it after looking through its media.

Does the Zoo happen to still have the Night House, I couldn't find any footage online. And if so, what species are still there
 
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