My last visit to the Chiang Mai Zoo was in 2006 so I don't have any really clear recollections of it apart for bits and pieces like the steep sloping steps on the paths (still there!) and various individual animals like Fea's muntjac.
Chiang Mai Zoo is a very large zoo, and very steep in places. Unfortunately there is a lot (and I mean A LOT!) of walking through totally animal-less parts. There would be signs that said things like “Orangutans, 3.862km”! You can take your own vehicles in to get around, and there is also a shuttle bus, but I did it on foot. There is a bit of construction and renovation work going on here and there so some animals were not visible, including the whole Small Cats area (it seems like every zoo I've been to lately has been in the middle of a construction phase!). It is also one of those zoos – common to most larger Asian zoos – where there is no good route to take without having to back-track constantly in order to see everything, and when you've finished you feel like you have surely missed something somewhere. The centre of the zoo is a real tangle of paths and even though there were quite a lot of visitors I was often the only person in some areas because they simply weren't marked well enough on either the paper map or the signboards. There were quite a lot of empty, blocked-off, abandoned, being-renovated enclosures everywhere, and sometimes I would feel like I was in an area I wasn't supposed to be.
Entry to the zoo is 150 Baht (about NZ$6). If you want to see the giant pandas then that's an extra 100 Baht (I have seen plenty of boring pandas inChina so I did not take that option). There is a new Aquarium at the zoo (the small old one is closed up and blocked off), but that costs a whopping 450 Baht to enter so I passed on that with a little reluctance (I have little money left and for a comparison my room in Chiang Mai costs me 200 Baht per night).
It is a pretty good zoo. Most of the enclosures and cages could benefit from being larger but few of them are too small. There is a large African Savannah exhibit with waterbuck, giraffes, ostriches and scimitar-horned oryx which is good. There are also large enclosure for Asian ungulates (banteng and deer) which have walkways overhead for viewing. The Big Cats are housed in average-sized enclosures (not too small); the bears are in quite small “pit-style” enclosures and same for the macaques (more “grotto-style” for them), and while not good neither are as bad as in many other Asian zoos. The orangutan enclosure was large and well-supplied with climbing structures and trees, and the gibbons were all on planted islands (although without a lot of proper brachiation structures for them). The worst mammal enclosures were in the Zoo Kid Zone. This is something that frustrates me – even when a zoo is professing to be providing excellent housing and developing the other enclosures, in the kids' zoos the animals are regularly housed in very small cages. What does that teach the children viewing them? Here the porcupines and meerkats were in tiny concrete pits, but much worse were a slow loris and (an unseen) small-toothed palm civet in cages which can only be described as hutches. The civet cage would have been little wider than the total body length of the animal. Just a terrible shame. On the hopeful side there is a lot of construction going on next to this area and on the fencing were artists' impressions of the future kids zoo which is being built. None of the pictures showed enclosures as far as I could interpret them, but fingers crossed for better conditions there. The koalas are also in the Zoo Kid Zone I might add, and they are housed fine (it appeared to be entirely indoors, and the viewing was through glass, but they might have had a section of open roof?). There were five koalas, including one born there.
I realised as I was writing this that in 2006 I saw a Nocturnal House at the zoo (which from memory had mostly outside enclosures so not really a Nocturnal House at all!). I did not see this at all today. I can't remember where in the zoo it was situated.
There are many extremely large aviaries scattered around the zoo. Some are walk-throughs (including the VERY large Nakhonping Bird Park) and others are not. Some seemed almost wasted – for example, there would be a whopping great aviary which could have housed something like hornbills and all that would be in it would be a few peafowl. The hornbills, I might add, were mostly in tall narrow cages (sort of “cylinder-style” but not quite). The storks and cranes all had very large aviaries and most appeared to be nesting which is good. The flamingoes had several juveniles in the flock so they are obviously breeding as well. Lots of pheasants in small bare aviaries as is common unfortunately. The aviaries labelled on the map signboards as being for “Wild Birds” (in 2006 these aviaries included rufous treepies amongst their inhabitants) were now just housing pheasants.
There is a large new building being finished which will house king penguins. I'm not sure when exactly but there were banners up saying “coming soon”. Possibly the current Humboldt's penguins might move over there too. What was nice was that even though the building was still being furnished (construction itself has finished) visitors were allowed inside to view it. The ground floor is devoted to mammoths for some inexplicable reason, and the centre attraction is a not-even-nearly-life-size mammoth reconstruction. Upstairs is the above-water viewing for the penguins (through glass) and downstairs – basement level – is the underwater viewing. It looks good, but I really think they should have made the penguins' living space much larger.
The reptile area is mostly the same as last visit, with outdoor concrete-walled enclosures. Lots of different chelonians on display.
Chiang Mai Zoo is a very large zoo, and very steep in places. Unfortunately there is a lot (and I mean A LOT!) of walking through totally animal-less parts. There would be signs that said things like “Orangutans, 3.862km”! You can take your own vehicles in to get around, and there is also a shuttle bus, but I did it on foot. There is a bit of construction and renovation work going on here and there so some animals were not visible, including the whole Small Cats area (it seems like every zoo I've been to lately has been in the middle of a construction phase!). It is also one of those zoos – common to most larger Asian zoos – where there is no good route to take without having to back-track constantly in order to see everything, and when you've finished you feel like you have surely missed something somewhere. The centre of the zoo is a real tangle of paths and even though there were quite a lot of visitors I was often the only person in some areas because they simply weren't marked well enough on either the paper map or the signboards. There were quite a lot of empty, blocked-off, abandoned, being-renovated enclosures everywhere, and sometimes I would feel like I was in an area I wasn't supposed to be.
Entry to the zoo is 150 Baht (about NZ$6). If you want to see the giant pandas then that's an extra 100 Baht (I have seen plenty of boring pandas inChina so I did not take that option). There is a new Aquarium at the zoo (the small old one is closed up and blocked off), but that costs a whopping 450 Baht to enter so I passed on that with a little reluctance (I have little money left and for a comparison my room in Chiang Mai costs me 200 Baht per night).
It is a pretty good zoo. Most of the enclosures and cages could benefit from being larger but few of them are too small. There is a large African Savannah exhibit with waterbuck, giraffes, ostriches and scimitar-horned oryx which is good. There are also large enclosure for Asian ungulates (banteng and deer) which have walkways overhead for viewing. The Big Cats are housed in average-sized enclosures (not too small); the bears are in quite small “pit-style” enclosures and same for the macaques (more “grotto-style” for them), and while not good neither are as bad as in many other Asian zoos. The orangutan enclosure was large and well-supplied with climbing structures and trees, and the gibbons were all on planted islands (although without a lot of proper brachiation structures for them). The worst mammal enclosures were in the Zoo Kid Zone. This is something that frustrates me – even when a zoo is professing to be providing excellent housing and developing the other enclosures, in the kids' zoos the animals are regularly housed in very small cages. What does that teach the children viewing them? Here the porcupines and meerkats were in tiny concrete pits, but much worse were a slow loris and (an unseen) small-toothed palm civet in cages which can only be described as hutches. The civet cage would have been little wider than the total body length of the animal. Just a terrible shame. On the hopeful side there is a lot of construction going on next to this area and on the fencing were artists' impressions of the future kids zoo which is being built. None of the pictures showed enclosures as far as I could interpret them, but fingers crossed for better conditions there. The koalas are also in the Zoo Kid Zone I might add, and they are housed fine (it appeared to be entirely indoors, and the viewing was through glass, but they might have had a section of open roof?). There were five koalas, including one born there.
I realised as I was writing this that in 2006 I saw a Nocturnal House at the zoo (which from memory had mostly outside enclosures so not really a Nocturnal House at all!). I did not see this at all today. I can't remember where in the zoo it was situated.
There are many extremely large aviaries scattered around the zoo. Some are walk-throughs (including the VERY large Nakhonping Bird Park) and others are not. Some seemed almost wasted – for example, there would be a whopping great aviary which could have housed something like hornbills and all that would be in it would be a few peafowl. The hornbills, I might add, were mostly in tall narrow cages (sort of “cylinder-style” but not quite). The storks and cranes all had very large aviaries and most appeared to be nesting which is good. The flamingoes had several juveniles in the flock so they are obviously breeding as well. Lots of pheasants in small bare aviaries as is common unfortunately. The aviaries labelled on the map signboards as being for “Wild Birds” (in 2006 these aviaries included rufous treepies amongst their inhabitants) were now just housing pheasants.
There is a large new building being finished which will house king penguins. I'm not sure when exactly but there were banners up saying “coming soon”. Possibly the current Humboldt's penguins might move over there too. What was nice was that even though the building was still being furnished (construction itself has finished) visitors were allowed inside to view it. The ground floor is devoted to mammoths for some inexplicable reason, and the centre attraction is a not-even-nearly-life-size mammoth reconstruction. Upstairs is the above-water viewing for the penguins (through glass) and downstairs – basement level – is the underwater viewing. It looks good, but I really think they should have made the penguins' living space much larger.
The reptile area is mostly the same as last visit, with outdoor concrete-walled enclosures. Lots of different chelonians on display.
