biggest_dreamer
Well-Known Member
This trip is still a ways off, and is still in its early planning phase... but I've been saying I want to visit Japan for well over a decade now, so the more effort I put towards planning for this, the "realer" it starts to become. I know there are quite a few similar threads on this forum, and I've read through them all and found them all to be very helpful in hashing out a zoo itinerary. Still, I wanted to work on my own list to both keep a record of where I intend to go, as well as hopefully ask a few questions along the way.
This isn't going to be a strictly zoo-focused trip by any stretch. I'm certainly jealous of those of you who head to Japan to hit 20 facilities over the span of two weeks, but that's not on the cards for me. This is a trip for both myself and my wife, and while she certainly enjoys visiting zoos with me, she doesn't quite hit the same obsessive notes that I do, so I'm hoping to strike a balance for our individual and shared interests. Zoos are also far from the only appealing thing the country has to offer, so the initial plan was "one or two" zoos before I began researching. I think it's likely that we'll wind up hitting quite a few more than that when it's all said and done.
I believe I'll be staying in Tokyo (likely the Asakusa area, specifically) for the trip's duration, so everything needs to be a comfortable day trip from there. My main goal is to see as many new species as possible, from the perspective of someone based in the southeastern US, while minimizing my time spent at subpar zoos (which I understand there are quite a few of). My main priority are mammals, then birds a fair bit lower down, then everything else.
As it stands, here's my facility priority list:
1. Zoorasia. Everything about this zoo seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for. It seems to have largely modern welfare standards, and has a trio of incredibly exciting monkeys (proboscis monkey, red-shanked douc, and Tibetan macaque). There are several other (sub)species I'd consider high priority new additions to my life list as well: Asiatic lion, dhole, brown fur seal, Eurasian otter, Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, golden takin, crested argus. It will also be nice to see several members of the "standard" native collection (tanuki, Japanese badger, Tsushima leopard cat, Japanese hare, Japanese red fox, Japanese black bear, red crowned crane) in comfortable exhibits, even though I'm sure I'll wind up running into several of them time and time again over this trip.
2. Tama Zoo. Tama is a very close second to Zoorasia - when I initially settled on just two zoos for this trip, these two seemed like no-brainers. They seem to typically be spoken of in the same breath with regard to animal welfare, which is massively reassuring. The Australian section is the biggest draw here, with Tasmanian devil and parma wallaby being the two centerpieces. There's plenty more new species for me here too, though: Himalayan tahr, mouflon, Japanese serow, wallaroo (common?), masked palm civet, two different hare species, with any luck the Japanese giant flying squirrel, and of course the infamous mole house and insectarium. In addition to the wallaroo, though, I'd love to know what wolf subspecies they keep, as well as the giraffe situation across all the zoos.
3. Saitama Children's Zoo. Quokkas. That's it, really. Quokkas. I told my wife I'd realized there's a zoo that keeps quokkas, and she said add it to the list, simple as that. Saitama seems like it doesn't necessarily hit the same quality standards of Tama or Zoorasia, but from what I've seen it generally doesn't look bad either. In addition to the quokkas, they also have a few more notable species for me: Pallas's cats (certainly one of the most prevalent species in US zoos I haven't seen), Chacoan mara, bush hyrax, pudu, northern Luzon giant cloud rat, gundi, plains viscacha, sika deer. Lots of very exciting small creatures here. I suspect there might be a few more I haven't seen documented as well.
4. Inokashira Park Zoo. Here is where we transition into the "maybe, if there's time" zoos. Inokashira Park hits a couple of sweet spots, though: it's small, it does have a few unique species, (Rhesus macaque, Japanese weasel, Japanese marten, Yakushima sika deer, Ryukyu flying fox, wild boar, another shot at the giant flying squirrel), and it's right next to the Ghibli Museum, which we're hoping will be the centerpiece of one of the days of our trip. I'd say this one's likely to happen, assuming we don't have awful luck in getting Ghibli tickets (or can only get them on Monday, the day this zoo is closed). I know that's its own whole can of worms, though.
5. Sumida Aquarium. We do intend to have a day dedicated to wandering around the Skytree area, and it would be nice to hit at least one aquarium, so this one's another solid "time willing". I don't keep a life list of fish, so to my knowledge the only new species here would be South American fur seal, but this still looks like a fairly neat facility. Which day we wind up in the Skytree area will be contingent on getting reservations for the Kirby Cafe, but thankfully that one seems slightly less stressful than Ghibli, and we'll still be going to the Skytree even if we miss out on Kirby.
6. Nogeyama Zoo. Can't say this one is a priority at all, but we do intend to take a second Yokohama day aside from Zoorasia, and it's free and relatively small and has kagus. That seems to be the only point of interest here, though, unless I wind up missing out on the marten at Inokashira Park.
I think these are the six places I'm most likely to visit. I know Ueno Zoo is a particularly glaring omission, but 1. The exhibit quality seems to be so dismal I don't think I'd be able to actually enjoy being here, and 2. There's actually relatively few interesting species here from what I can tell. The Chinese pangolin, secretarybird, great slaty woodpecker, and spectral tarsier would be the biggest draws, but they really aren't enough to overlook the overall state of the zoo. Maybe if I'd never seen any pangolin before that would be a different story, but I'm lucky enough to have seen Brookfield's about a year ago. Different species, of course, but you know. Aquamarine Fukushima was a serious contender for a day trip despite the distance, until I just found out their ribbon seal passed away a few weeks ago. Other aquariums in general do feel like potential missed opportunities, perhaps most notably Tokyo Sea Life or Sunshine Aquarium, but as it stands I'm not seeing a way to fit them into a partial day given where they're located or their size. Still, I know there's lots of seals and cetaceans to be seen in Japan, which has me interested if there's any other quick aquariums in the Tokyo area I should consider (for the record, my meager pinniped list is gray seal, harbor seal, California sea lion, walrus; cetaceans are bottlenose dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin, beluga, orca - so anything beyond those would be novel to me).
So now that I've got all that out of my system, a couple of questions, some of which I already touched on:
1. How difficult is it to get to these facilities via public transport? The JR Pass looks very appealing, but would it cover the buses from the stations to ie Zoorasia and Saitama? My exposure to public transportation is very limited given its total nonexistence where I'm from, so the navigation aspect poses a unique challenge here.
2. I'd like clarification on the species/subspecies of a few animals. The non-Masai giraffe population here in the US is a mess. What's it like in Japan? I don't think I've seen a subspecies listed for any of the zoos I'm interested in. There's a similar situation with the US's "wild boars", which I understand are all domestic pig hybrids. Is that likely to be the case for Inokashira Park's boars too? I'm also interested in the species of wallaroo and subspecies of wolf Tama keeps.
3. Any further suggestions for zoos or aquariums that are in the Tokyo area, particularly ones with rare mammals, would be appreciated. I think I've more or less done my research and have honed in on the ones that will suit me best, but I also wouldn't put it past me to have missed somewhere right next to my hotel that keeps indri. On a more serious note, I've found it a bit more difficult to keep track of the various aquariums, so as previously mentioned I'll gladly look into anything in or around Tokyo with interesting seals or pinnipeds in particular.
And ultimately, of course, I do know that given how far out this all is, anything and everything is subject to change. Zoorasia could suddenly lose all their langurs, Ueno might do a welfare 180, or hey maybe Edogawa Natural Zoo starts keeping numbats and saola and marine iguanas. ...Okay, maybe not anything, but I do know that I'm approaching these specific plans at least somewhat tentatively until we get to the point where we need to start locking things in.
Any advice or commentary would be greatly appreciated.
This isn't going to be a strictly zoo-focused trip by any stretch. I'm certainly jealous of those of you who head to Japan to hit 20 facilities over the span of two weeks, but that's not on the cards for me. This is a trip for both myself and my wife, and while she certainly enjoys visiting zoos with me, she doesn't quite hit the same obsessive notes that I do, so I'm hoping to strike a balance for our individual and shared interests. Zoos are also far from the only appealing thing the country has to offer, so the initial plan was "one or two" zoos before I began researching. I think it's likely that we'll wind up hitting quite a few more than that when it's all said and done.
I believe I'll be staying in Tokyo (likely the Asakusa area, specifically) for the trip's duration, so everything needs to be a comfortable day trip from there. My main goal is to see as many new species as possible, from the perspective of someone based in the southeastern US, while minimizing my time spent at subpar zoos (which I understand there are quite a few of). My main priority are mammals, then birds a fair bit lower down, then everything else.
As it stands, here's my facility priority list:
1. Zoorasia. Everything about this zoo seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for. It seems to have largely modern welfare standards, and has a trio of incredibly exciting monkeys (proboscis monkey, red-shanked douc, and Tibetan macaque). There are several other (sub)species I'd consider high priority new additions to my life list as well: Asiatic lion, dhole, brown fur seal, Eurasian otter, Goodfellow's tree kangaroo, golden takin, crested argus. It will also be nice to see several members of the "standard" native collection (tanuki, Japanese badger, Tsushima leopard cat, Japanese hare, Japanese red fox, Japanese black bear, red crowned crane) in comfortable exhibits, even though I'm sure I'll wind up running into several of them time and time again over this trip.
2. Tama Zoo. Tama is a very close second to Zoorasia - when I initially settled on just two zoos for this trip, these two seemed like no-brainers. They seem to typically be spoken of in the same breath with regard to animal welfare, which is massively reassuring. The Australian section is the biggest draw here, with Tasmanian devil and parma wallaby being the two centerpieces. There's plenty more new species for me here too, though: Himalayan tahr, mouflon, Japanese serow, wallaroo (common?), masked palm civet, two different hare species, with any luck the Japanese giant flying squirrel, and of course the infamous mole house and insectarium. In addition to the wallaroo, though, I'd love to know what wolf subspecies they keep, as well as the giraffe situation across all the zoos.
3. Saitama Children's Zoo. Quokkas. That's it, really. Quokkas. I told my wife I'd realized there's a zoo that keeps quokkas, and she said add it to the list, simple as that. Saitama seems like it doesn't necessarily hit the same quality standards of Tama or Zoorasia, but from what I've seen it generally doesn't look bad either. In addition to the quokkas, they also have a few more notable species for me: Pallas's cats (certainly one of the most prevalent species in US zoos I haven't seen), Chacoan mara, bush hyrax, pudu, northern Luzon giant cloud rat, gundi, plains viscacha, sika deer. Lots of very exciting small creatures here. I suspect there might be a few more I haven't seen documented as well.
4. Inokashira Park Zoo. Here is where we transition into the "maybe, if there's time" zoos. Inokashira Park hits a couple of sweet spots, though: it's small, it does have a few unique species, (Rhesus macaque, Japanese weasel, Japanese marten, Yakushima sika deer, Ryukyu flying fox, wild boar, another shot at the giant flying squirrel), and it's right next to the Ghibli Museum, which we're hoping will be the centerpiece of one of the days of our trip. I'd say this one's likely to happen, assuming we don't have awful luck in getting Ghibli tickets (or can only get them on Monday, the day this zoo is closed). I know that's its own whole can of worms, though.
5. Sumida Aquarium. We do intend to have a day dedicated to wandering around the Skytree area, and it would be nice to hit at least one aquarium, so this one's another solid "time willing". I don't keep a life list of fish, so to my knowledge the only new species here would be South American fur seal, but this still looks like a fairly neat facility. Which day we wind up in the Skytree area will be contingent on getting reservations for the Kirby Cafe, but thankfully that one seems slightly less stressful than Ghibli, and we'll still be going to the Skytree even if we miss out on Kirby.
6. Nogeyama Zoo. Can't say this one is a priority at all, but we do intend to take a second Yokohama day aside from Zoorasia, and it's free and relatively small and has kagus. That seems to be the only point of interest here, though, unless I wind up missing out on the marten at Inokashira Park.
I think these are the six places I'm most likely to visit. I know Ueno Zoo is a particularly glaring omission, but 1. The exhibit quality seems to be so dismal I don't think I'd be able to actually enjoy being here, and 2. There's actually relatively few interesting species here from what I can tell. The Chinese pangolin, secretarybird, great slaty woodpecker, and spectral tarsier would be the biggest draws, but they really aren't enough to overlook the overall state of the zoo. Maybe if I'd never seen any pangolin before that would be a different story, but I'm lucky enough to have seen Brookfield's about a year ago. Different species, of course, but you know. Aquamarine Fukushima was a serious contender for a day trip despite the distance, until I just found out their ribbon seal passed away a few weeks ago. Other aquariums in general do feel like potential missed opportunities, perhaps most notably Tokyo Sea Life or Sunshine Aquarium, but as it stands I'm not seeing a way to fit them into a partial day given where they're located or their size. Still, I know there's lots of seals and cetaceans to be seen in Japan, which has me interested if there's any other quick aquariums in the Tokyo area I should consider (for the record, my meager pinniped list is gray seal, harbor seal, California sea lion, walrus; cetaceans are bottlenose dolphin, Pacific white-sided dolphin, beluga, orca - so anything beyond those would be novel to me).
So now that I've got all that out of my system, a couple of questions, some of which I already touched on:
1. How difficult is it to get to these facilities via public transport? The JR Pass looks very appealing, but would it cover the buses from the stations to ie Zoorasia and Saitama? My exposure to public transportation is very limited given its total nonexistence where I'm from, so the navigation aspect poses a unique challenge here.
2. I'd like clarification on the species/subspecies of a few animals. The non-Masai giraffe population here in the US is a mess. What's it like in Japan? I don't think I've seen a subspecies listed for any of the zoos I'm interested in. There's a similar situation with the US's "wild boars", which I understand are all domestic pig hybrids. Is that likely to be the case for Inokashira Park's boars too? I'm also interested in the species of wallaroo and subspecies of wolf Tama keeps.
3. Any further suggestions for zoos or aquariums that are in the Tokyo area, particularly ones with rare mammals, would be appreciated. I think I've more or less done my research and have honed in on the ones that will suit me best, but I also wouldn't put it past me to have missed somewhere right next to my hotel that keeps indri. On a more serious note, I've found it a bit more difficult to keep track of the various aquariums, so as previously mentioned I'll gladly look into anything in or around Tokyo with interesting seals or pinnipeds in particular.
And ultimately, of course, I do know that given how far out this all is, anything and everything is subject to change. Zoorasia could suddenly lose all their langurs, Ueno might do a welfare 180, or hey maybe Edogawa Natural Zoo starts keeping numbats and saola and marine iguanas. ...Okay, maybe not anything, but I do know that I'm approaching these specific plans at least somewhat tentatively until we get to the point where we need to start locking things in.
Any advice or commentary would be greatly appreciated.
