I visited Mysore Zoo on December 27th 2021. Before visiting I had referred to the
March 2021 annual report and the
map on the zoo website to get an idea of what to expect, and I suggest you do the same if you are interested in this zoo. Since then several changes have been made to the collection and layout. If you want to get an idea what the zoo was like back when the map was made, here is a
video tour of the zoo to get a rough idea of how it was.
The changes:
I made sure to thoroughly explore the bird area near the entry gate. There were quite a few changes. (1) The owl collection has radically changed since March. I saw three brown wood owls, one barn owl and one brown fish owl when I visited, as opposed to the four barn owls and one wood owl listed in the annual report. Mottled Wood Owl was also signed, but I did not see anything resembling one. (2) Several of the pheasants in aviaries labelled ‘Golden Pheasant’ appeared to be Lady Amherst’s Pheasant or hybrids, due to having a black-and-white ‘head cape’, unlike the black-and-orange cape of true Golden. I will upload photos. (3) There were also three dark-coloured female pheasants, in an aviary alongside the other pheasants, labelled ‘Green Pheasants’ but the inventory claims this species was phased out long ago. Again I will upload photos for ID, but they aren’t that great. (4) An additional Tawny Eagle and an additional Brahminy Kite seem to have been acquired. (5) The Greater Flamingo was gone, almost surely dead, and has been replaced by a lone Ruddy Shelduck. (6)The number of Coconut Lorikeet and Jandaya Conure seem to have increased since March.
The primate area has been rehauled, with one side of the old circular chimpanzee exhibit in the centre becoming the new home for the two newly-acquired male gorillas, and the other side of the exhibit was still under construction. The path was blocked of, so I did not see the gibbons unfortunately, which are housed nearby.
The old Brazilian tapir-Indian wolf exhibit complex has been transformed for 1.2 cheetahs from South Africa. I am not sure why the sex ratio is skewed the wrong way, nor why they were all three were housed in the same pen when I visited. Even if they are related and breeding is discouraged, this seems like a thoroughly stupid way of going about it. I did not see any tapirs anywhere, although unless I am mistaken a male tapir should still be at the zoo.
Near the zebras a new orangutan exhibit has been constructed, where I believe the former Himalayan black bear exhibit was. Only 1 orangutan out of the imported 2.2 was outside and on show, so I assume the others were locked inside their night house. The 1.1 imported from Singapore should be Bornean orangutan, but I am not sure what species the Malaysian pair is.
The wolves are still housed in their second exhibit near the dholes and sloth bear. They had recently bred so the exhibit was off-show, to give the babies some privacy (or at least that was the excuse given on the sign near the exhibit).
Not shown on the map, there is a horrid set of jail cells for striped hyena, next to the second (Western) sloth Bear exhibit. They are so awful they can’t possibly be a new exhibit, but I felt they are worth mentioning simply in the hope that they get rid of this ugly abomination. I am not sure what is planned for the cages and their inhabitants.
I missed most of the waterbird and reptile exhibits due to a lack of time, so I cannot comment on any changes to the collection and exhibitry in those areas of the zoo. However, I managed to sneak a peek into the ‘Japanese Pond’ aviary, and I did not see any Bar-headed Geese. Since there was only 1 individual left it may not have died or simply hidden from view. The Mandarin Duck were also not visible, but considering the numbers they have probably not died out but simply been moved somewhere else or were shy and hid from view.
There were no Rhea on display, and the road leading to the exhibit was blocked off. The lone individual probably died.
I could not find any Red Avadavat, Zebra Finch, Rock Dove or Yellow-collared Lovebird. They may still be kept at the Karanji Lake aviaries however, which I did not visit. Naturally, the numbers I recorded for the pheasants, parakeets and Sarus Crane in the main zoo are much lower than in the inventory, which appears to combine both the main zoo and the lake collection.
