Be nice to have them in bigger urban centers, even at Arusha!
There is quite a significant zoo in Arusha - or at least there was ten years ago. The last time i visited it was the last day of the last millennium.
It is (was?) called Engosheraton Zoo, and there is further information about it in the article which follows. i hope it is not self-indulgent of me to post this, but it is a piece I wrote for
International Zoo News in 2000.
I'd be really interested to hear any updates on these zoos from anyone who has been fortunate enough to spend time in Tanzania recently.
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Tanzania is rightly famed for the excellence of its wildlife. There can be few names as evocative as those of Serengeti and Ngorongoro, and those wonderful reserves, along with many lesser-known places such as Gombe Stream, Ruaha, and Zanzibar's Jozani Forest, make this East African country a prime destination for those with any zoological interest. Tanzania is less well-known for its zoos, and when I accepted a two-year contract to teach there, starting in August 1998, I rather feared that those two years would be zoo-free. However, such fears have proved to be groundless, and I have managed to find several establishments which could be described as zoos - even if, in some cases, such a description would perhaps be rather an exaggeration.
There are three 'snake parks' in Tanzania, all located close to national parks. Two are rather good; one is very poor. The superior pair are both in the safari heartland of northern Tanzania: the MBT Snake Park is just outside the boundary of the Arusha National Park; the Meserani Snake Park is on the road connecting Arusha with Serengeti, Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara. The two are quite different in character: MBT exists primarily as a breeder and exporter of reptiles, is much quieter, and has a broader collection; Meserani is attached to a busy camp-site and bar, offers camel rides, sells less-than-tasteful tee-shirts proclaiming 'I survived the snake park', and is a far more commercial operation. The architecture at both of the parks is simple: snakes are housed in rows of rectangular, glass-fronted boxes, with some non-venomous species in open pits. Other reptiles - monitors, chameleons, tortoises, crocodiles - are also kept in pits. At Meserani the collection is entirely composed of local species; at MBT some exotics are also present, including king cobra, black-tailed rattlesnake, and the ubiquitous red-eared terrapin. At MBT, too, there is a far better collection of chameleons (around ten different species and subspecies) and chelonians; these groups are represented at Meserani, but the emphasis there is much more firmly put upon snakes. Both parks maintain most of the snake species one might expect - green and black mambas, boomslangs, spitting cobras and so on - with one or two more unusual species as well, such as Usambara bush viper (Atheris ceratophora) at Meserani, and East African egg-eating snake (Dasypeltis medici) at MBT. The fact that MBT's primary task is to export its animals means that its collection is constantly changing, but on both of the visits I have made a fine array of reptiles has been on display. The park's name, incidentally, stands for 'Mountain Birds and Trophies', even though it is reptiles with which it is now concerned. With relatively low visitor numbers, each park is able to offer a guided tour to each group of visitors, and these are of an excellent standard, with very knowledgeable guides and plenty of opportunities to touch and hold a variety of species. Unfortunately, these opportunities are only really ever going to be open to tourists: both parks are sited well away from population centres, and very few Tanzanians would be able to make their way there, even if they were inclined to do so.
The less impressive snake park is to be found in the small town of Mikumi, just outside the national park of the same name in central Tanzania. The collection here is neither so broad nor so well maintained, and a rather depressing shabbiness sits over the whole establishment. At the time of my visit several yellow baboons, blue monkeys and vervet monkeys were on display, in rather cupboard-like cages, as well as a single banded mongoose. Given their apparent condition, I would not expect these mammals to live out long and happy lives.
Another type of 'zoo' which one sees in Tanzania are ornamental collections, attached to upmarket hotels. Some of these are very small (a hotel in Arusha has some very pleasant aviaries for spoonbills, flamingos and crowned cranes), while some are quite dreadful (one expensive hotel in Dar-es-Salaam has a scruffy and ill-kept collection in its back garden, with, at the time of my visit, an ostrich roaming free and four dead ducks floating on a pond, amongst other delights). More extensive, and far more impressive, is the collection at the Mount Meru Game Sanctuary, a beautiful hotel half an hour's drive from Arusha town. One or two smaller enclosures contain porcupines, baboons, vervet monkeys, and, most remarkably of all, what appeared to be a Sanje mangabey (Cercocebus sanjei) - almost certainly the only one of its kind in captivity. Unfortunately, I was unable to ascertain just how this unusual primate ended up in a hotel some 350 miles from its home range. The highlight at Mount Meru, though, is a large paddock, perhaps an acre or two in extent, in which zebra, waterbuck and eland, as well as saddle-billed and yellow-billed stork, sacred ibis and ostrich can all be seen. Some of the more exclusive safari companies use this hotel as a starting point for their trips, and it is easy to see why: it's a beautiful place, and the main paddock provides a nice glimpse of the animals likely to be encountered on any trip into a national park. Again, though, these collections - good and bad - are unlikely to be seen by more than a handful of Tanzanians.
More easily accessible for local people are two small but excellent establishments on the island of Zanzibar. At the north end of the island, near the small village of Nungwi, is found the Mnarni Natural Turtle Aquarium. This is essentially a large rock-pool, in which a dozen or more hawksbill and green turtles - as well as a good number of fish - are contained. There are one or two educational graphics, and a family of wild vervet monkeys live in the trees around the pool, but essentially the turtles are all there is to see here. Despite this, we were thoroughly impressed by the Turtle Aquarium: not only does it provide tourists with a close-up view of some fascinating animals (and the chance to feed them too), but it also gives the local people, in what is a very poor area, a financial incentive for the preservation of wildlife. Equally good is Zala Park, a small zoo near to the Jozani Forest (home of the endemic Zanzibar red colobus monkey). Zala Park is run by an enthusiastic Zanzibari, Muhammed Haji, who happily leads visitors around his collection. The information signs he has produced are of an excellent standard, and what is perhaps most encouraging of all is that Zala Park doesn't simply exist for tourists: a classroom is located on its site, and at the time of our visit Mr Haji was encouraging a group of local children to appreciate the suni antelopes. These suni are of a subspecies endemic to Zanzibar (Neotragus m. moschatus) and are perhaps the most interesting animals in a collection which also includes eastern tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax validus) and various reptiles. We were also delighted to see a very large marsh cane rat (Thryonomys swinderianus), but this, unfortunately, was only a short-term resident, destined to be fed to a big rock python.
The closest that Tanzania comes to a conventional zoo is at the Engosheraton Zoological Gardens, an extraordinary place on the outskirts of Arusha. I can normally sniff out a zoo with all the alacrity of a French pig looking for truffles, but Engosheraton escaped my notice for a long while. Even when I did learn of its existence, it took a long taxi journey through the less salubrious side of Arusha to find the zoo - quite possibly the only zoo in the world to advertise a hair-dressing salon among its facilities. The animal side of the operation is arranged around a neatly tended quarter-acre of garden. Crowned cranes and flamingos (greater and lesser) wander around freely, the rest of the zoo's stock is confined to a string of very small cages. These cages are clean, and the animals appear well-fed, but - out of ignorance, I feel, rather than neglect - standards of husbandry are rudimentary: primates are denied branches, birds are denied a safe haven into which to retreat. What makes Engosheraton a notable place, though, is its collection, which is filled with animals which may not be very rare in the wild, but which are infrequently seen in zoos. Among its mammals are African palm civet (Nandinia binotata arborea), greater galago (the zoo's symbol), black-and-white colobus, giant pouched rat, a pair of spotted hyenas, and, sharing a small paddock, a Thomson's gazelle and a bush duiker. Mongooses and squirrels of uncertain species, as well as porcupines, genets, baboons and vervet monkeys (which - miraculously - had bred on the day before I visited) are among the more commonplace mammals on show. Engosheraton's bird collection is also surprisingly broad, with Hartlaub's turaco (four of them squeezed into a box the size of a large television set), blue-naped mousebird and green pigeon (peacefully coexisting in another less-than-spacious cage), vulturine and helmeted guinea-fowl, and several bird of prey species (the less said about their cages the better). There are also a number of reptile species on show - nothing too unusual, but a fair representative collection.
Engosheraton may not be West Berlin, but to come across a zoo with just short of 50 vertebrate species in an Arusha suburb is fairly remarkable. As to who actually visits the place. . . On this point I am not sure. Tourists coming to see the wide open spaces of the Serengeti are unlikely, on the whole, to be drawn to look at sleeping creatures in rabbit-hutch size cages, while Engosheraton is sufficiently far out of Arusha town centre to deter local visitors, even with the added attraction of being able to have one's hair cut at the same venue. Nor is the purpose of the place especially clear: I can't believe it would show any sort of a profit for its owner, animals are not - apparently, at least - on sale, and any claims to an educational role would be far-fetched: identification 'signs' are hand-written on scraps of paper, and the guided tour extended no further than 'this is mole snake . . . this is vervet monkey. . .'
The final Tanzanian zoo is a pitiful place, on a small island on Lake Victoria - Saa Nane Island, just off the coast from the large town of Mwanza. The collection here - three spotted hyenas, a lion, a leopard and a chimpanzee - is quite awfully housed, and the condition of the animals is poor. It is all rather depressing. A herd of impala are free to wander around the island, which also supports good wild populations of birds and lizards. Grim though it may be, Saa Nane has an interesting history. In the 1960s, Rubondo Island National Park, also on Lake Victoria, was stocked with a variety of introduced animals: chimpanzees, elephants, roan antelope and black rhino amongst them. This introduction is in itself a fascinating story, and whilst the rhino and roan antelope have long gone (the former due to poaching), the chimpanzees have thrived in a way which would, presumably, be very interesting to those working in reintroduction programmes with other primates. But to return to Saa Nane, its original role was as a staging post for the animals which were being taken to Rubondo. The remains of one or two enclosures can be seen, and there are hints that it hasn't always been the shocking place that it is today. Hopefully, too, it won't always be such a dreadful place in the future, for I believe very strongly that a zoo like Saa Nane has enormous potential. Mwanza is not a tourist destination, and so most of the 15-20,000 people who visit Saa Nane each year are local. The numbers may not be vast - Tanzanians are fully capable of recognising a badly run place when they see one - but the demand is there, for schools, and for people seeking relaxation and enlightenment.
A well-run zoo in a place like Mwanza - or Arusha or Dar-es-Salaam - would be a resource of the utmost worth. My experience in Tanzania has shown me that it is a myth that Africans are not every bit as fascinated by their wildlife as Europeans and Americans. On the contrary, many of our students have shown themselves to be highly knowledgeable about the local wildlife, and respectful of its place in the environment. There is, too, a very definite sense of pride in the country's wildlife. But beyond an occasional family of vervet monkeys taking their crops, most Tanzanians do not get to see a great deal of their wildlife: the national parks might as well be on the other side of the world - the cost of visiting them is just too high for the vast majority of Tanzanians. But when they do have a chance to see animals, most Tanzanians are thrilled to do so: the tortoises and chameleons we have kept in our house have fascinated visitors, and when we organised a school trip to Mikumi National Park we were swamped by students wanting to go (and furthermore, the majority of those students then went on to pay the not insignificant sum of 500 shillings - about 50 pence or 80 cents - to enter the less-than-impressive Mikumi Snake Park). So people do want to see animals - at the moment they just don't have the opportunity to do so. If Western conservation bodies expect Tanzanians to give up vast amounts of land to wildlife, it might be a good idea if they helped to make that wildlife rather more accessible to those Tanzanians. In financial terms it would not cost a great deal to offer the advice, expertise and resources needed to transform somewhere like Saa Nane into a worthwhile zoo. The rewards for doing so would be very high indeed.
It's called the Dar es Salaam Zoo, and I visited it in August last year and took a few pics there - not too many, because I didn't like the conditions in which some of the animals were kept. Some of the enclosures were ok though, and it still has the potential to improve since it's still a new establishment. It was just a farm before, and I think the owner decided to add the wild animals since it's located near a beach where there are a lot of tourist resorts and hence it would be an attraction. I'll get into more detail about the place in my next post - pls remind me!!!