Between December 2013 and January 2014 I spent three weeks in Burma, and while there I visited all but one of the animal collections I know of. The five collections I visited were the Yangon Zoo, Hlawga Park (outside Yangon), the Kandawgyi Fresh Water Fish Garden (in Yangon, which I hadn't known about before getting to that city), the Yadanabon Zoo (in Mandalay) and the Naypyitaw Zoo (in Naypyidaw). The sixth collection, which I didn't visit, was the Naypyitaw Safari Park which I only found out about when I was in Naypyidaw. The following is an overview of the zoos of Burma. I don't pretend to be an expert on this, it is simply based on my own experiences there. There are no doubt other collections which I have not heard of. A lot of the following is cannibalised from the full reviews I have written for each collection.
Burma is not the undeveloped backwater you might imagine it to be. It is really much the same as other southeast Asian countries, and the cities are just the same with their mix of old and new technologies. Neon lights are everywhere, computer and phone shops are ubiquitous, internet is widely available, and so forth. However it is a country fairly strictly controlled by a military government and as such it would appear that all the zoos are government owned. I did not get the impression that there is any scope for private individuals to open even small zoos as is the case in places like Thailand or Malaysia. This is probably a good thing because those sorts of zoos in Asia tend to be horrible squalid affairs, but unfortunately most of the big Burmese zoos are little better.
The oldest existing zoo in the country is the Yangon Zoo, opened in 1906 during the British rule, back when Myanmar was still called Burma and Yangon was still called Rangoon. As may be expected it was constructed according to the norms of late 19th century menageries, with small concrete cages with lots of bars and spikes to keep the dangerous animals from running rampage. Unfortunately the zoo has not really had any modernisation since then and although the zoo grounds are a very pleasant well-treed park, the animals are still largely contained within what appear to be the original concrete-and-bars cages. The tigers, for example, are displayed in barred cages around a building with a prominent proclamation that this is the “King Edward VII 1915 Carnivora House”.
Two much newer zoos are the Yadanabon Zoo and the Naypyitaw Zoo. The Yadanabon Zoo in Mandalay was opened in 1989 after a hasty 41 day construction period (!). The government obviously wanted a zoo here pretty badly: the construction committee was formed on 9 January 1989, construction started on 18 February and finished on 31 March, and the zoo opened to the public just a week later on 8 April. Sadly, while there are a couple of bright spots (a huge waterbird aviary for example), most of the zoo is built in the same early-twentieth-century manner as the Yangon Zoo, which probably isn't too surprising since that was probably the only zoo they had for reference. So the bears and tigers are in little concrete cells, and the monkeys are in similar small cages. The hooved stock gets by alright in yards which aren't too small. The aviaries are mostly alright. Really it is just like a smaller version of Yangon Zoo and that is very unfortunate because the opportunity was right there to make it really good.
The Naypyitaw Zoo is even newer again. Since 2005 Naypyidaw has been the new capital city of Burma (most of the actual city was built from scratch just to make a new capital). The Naypyitaw Zoo opened in 2008 and is an exceptionally good zoo with almost all the animals housed in large well-designed enclosures. The only real exceptions are the small cages in the Nocturnal House and the small baboon enclosure. If you missed this zoo, as I almost had to, then your overall view of the zoos of Burma would be heavily skewed towards the awful side. It doesn't make up for the terrible cages at the other two major zoos – in fact it makes the Yadanabon Zoo even worse because you can see what could have been – but it does give hope for the future. The nearby Naypyitaw Safari Park opened in 2011 and likewise appears to be a good facility with large living spaces for all its animals.
The remaining two collections, Hlawga Park and the Kandawgyi Fresh Water Fish Gardens, are not in the same box as the major zoos. The latter collection is of course not a zoo as such but rather a collection of fish in aquariums and ponds. Hlawga Park is a combined “mini zoo” and “safari park”. Despite the implications of the term “mini zoo” the animals there are mostly housed well, far better than at the Yangon Zoo, but there is only a very small number of species (hence “mini”). The “safari park” part is simply a very large fenced area of dry broadleaf forest in which various mostly-native hooved-stock have been released.
There are not a lot of exotic animal species in Burmese zoos. Until I visited the Naypyitaw Zoo (which, as the new “capital city zoo”, has the largest collection of exotics) I would – with some hyperbole – have been able to add them up with fingers to spare. Consequently the bulk of animals, especially in the bird department and even more so when it comes to reptiles, are native Burmese species. This does result in a fair bit of repetition in the zoo collections but fortunately for the general public native Burmese species include many of the typical ABC animals like elephants, crocodiles, deer, monkeys and bears. The exotic ABCs are there too (giraffes, zebras, lions, hippos, etc) but usually are relatively few in number; there are, for example, no exotic primates apart for a few chimpanzees at Yangon and a few hamadryas baboons at Naypyitaw. The zoos concentrate, as zoos do everywhere, on the big or crowd-pleasing mammals – the hooved-stock, the big cats, the bears and the monkeys – but pleasingly there are a lot of smaller mammals as well. Less pleasingly, most are housed very very poorly indeed. Apart for domestic rabbits and guinea pigs, the smaller mammals are all native and include various mustelids, viverrids, felids and canids.
Likewise the emphasis in the zoos' bird collections is on large species: water birds, pheasants, hornbills and birds of prey. Many of the birds probably come directly from the wild (some that I saw at Yadanabon Zoo in Mandalay definitely did). Yangon Zoo also has quite a few large exotic parrots such as macaws and cockatoos. Smaller birds are few, and are mostly parakeets and doves. Passerines are almost entirely absent – at Yadanabon Zoo I saw only hill mynahs; at Naypyitaw Zoo only a single red-billed magpie; at Yangon Zoo only hill mynahs, red-whiskered bulbuls, Java sparrows and black-headed munias. There are a lot of very common wild passerines in Burma which would make good display birds, such as hoopoes and various babblers and starlings, so their absence is a little surprising. I'm not sure if it is because there is no desire to bother with them, or if they do but don't have the expertise to keep them alive. In general the birds tend to be housed relatively well. The individual aviaries aren't huge but they aren't too small either. The Yangon and Yadanabon Zoos both have very large (they could be termed “huge”) aviaries for waterfowl and wading birds, and the Naypyitaw Zoo also has two huge walk-through aviaries.
Reptiles are fairly restricted, there being only a few species displayed and mostly the same species at each zoo. Surprisingly, given the shoddy way other animals are housed here and how reptiles often get the short end of the stick in western zoos, in Burmese zoos the reptiles are usually housed very well with large enclosures. There seems to be a lot of effort put into breeding the endangered local tortoises which is brilliant to see. (There are also stand-alone breeding facilities for tortoises dotted around the country, but I have not included them in the scope of this article).
Burma is not the undeveloped backwater you might imagine it to be. It is really much the same as other southeast Asian countries, and the cities are just the same with their mix of old and new technologies. Neon lights are everywhere, computer and phone shops are ubiquitous, internet is widely available, and so forth. However it is a country fairly strictly controlled by a military government and as such it would appear that all the zoos are government owned. I did not get the impression that there is any scope for private individuals to open even small zoos as is the case in places like Thailand or Malaysia. This is probably a good thing because those sorts of zoos in Asia tend to be horrible squalid affairs, but unfortunately most of the big Burmese zoos are little better.
The oldest existing zoo in the country is the Yangon Zoo, opened in 1906 during the British rule, back when Myanmar was still called Burma and Yangon was still called Rangoon. As may be expected it was constructed according to the norms of late 19th century menageries, with small concrete cages with lots of bars and spikes to keep the dangerous animals from running rampage. Unfortunately the zoo has not really had any modernisation since then and although the zoo grounds are a very pleasant well-treed park, the animals are still largely contained within what appear to be the original concrete-and-bars cages. The tigers, for example, are displayed in barred cages around a building with a prominent proclamation that this is the “King Edward VII 1915 Carnivora House”.
Two much newer zoos are the Yadanabon Zoo and the Naypyitaw Zoo. The Yadanabon Zoo in Mandalay was opened in 1989 after a hasty 41 day construction period (!). The government obviously wanted a zoo here pretty badly: the construction committee was formed on 9 January 1989, construction started on 18 February and finished on 31 March, and the zoo opened to the public just a week later on 8 April. Sadly, while there are a couple of bright spots (a huge waterbird aviary for example), most of the zoo is built in the same early-twentieth-century manner as the Yangon Zoo, which probably isn't too surprising since that was probably the only zoo they had for reference. So the bears and tigers are in little concrete cells, and the monkeys are in similar small cages. The hooved stock gets by alright in yards which aren't too small. The aviaries are mostly alright. Really it is just like a smaller version of Yangon Zoo and that is very unfortunate because the opportunity was right there to make it really good.
The Naypyitaw Zoo is even newer again. Since 2005 Naypyidaw has been the new capital city of Burma (most of the actual city was built from scratch just to make a new capital). The Naypyitaw Zoo opened in 2008 and is an exceptionally good zoo with almost all the animals housed in large well-designed enclosures. The only real exceptions are the small cages in the Nocturnal House and the small baboon enclosure. If you missed this zoo, as I almost had to, then your overall view of the zoos of Burma would be heavily skewed towards the awful side. It doesn't make up for the terrible cages at the other two major zoos – in fact it makes the Yadanabon Zoo even worse because you can see what could have been – but it does give hope for the future. The nearby Naypyitaw Safari Park opened in 2011 and likewise appears to be a good facility with large living spaces for all its animals.
The remaining two collections, Hlawga Park and the Kandawgyi Fresh Water Fish Gardens, are not in the same box as the major zoos. The latter collection is of course not a zoo as such but rather a collection of fish in aquariums and ponds. Hlawga Park is a combined “mini zoo” and “safari park”. Despite the implications of the term “mini zoo” the animals there are mostly housed well, far better than at the Yangon Zoo, but there is only a very small number of species (hence “mini”). The “safari park” part is simply a very large fenced area of dry broadleaf forest in which various mostly-native hooved-stock have been released.
There are not a lot of exotic animal species in Burmese zoos. Until I visited the Naypyitaw Zoo (which, as the new “capital city zoo”, has the largest collection of exotics) I would – with some hyperbole – have been able to add them up with fingers to spare. Consequently the bulk of animals, especially in the bird department and even more so when it comes to reptiles, are native Burmese species. This does result in a fair bit of repetition in the zoo collections but fortunately for the general public native Burmese species include many of the typical ABC animals like elephants, crocodiles, deer, monkeys and bears. The exotic ABCs are there too (giraffes, zebras, lions, hippos, etc) but usually are relatively few in number; there are, for example, no exotic primates apart for a few chimpanzees at Yangon and a few hamadryas baboons at Naypyitaw. The zoos concentrate, as zoos do everywhere, on the big or crowd-pleasing mammals – the hooved-stock, the big cats, the bears and the monkeys – but pleasingly there are a lot of smaller mammals as well. Less pleasingly, most are housed very very poorly indeed. Apart for domestic rabbits and guinea pigs, the smaller mammals are all native and include various mustelids, viverrids, felids and canids.
Likewise the emphasis in the zoos' bird collections is on large species: water birds, pheasants, hornbills and birds of prey. Many of the birds probably come directly from the wild (some that I saw at Yadanabon Zoo in Mandalay definitely did). Yangon Zoo also has quite a few large exotic parrots such as macaws and cockatoos. Smaller birds are few, and are mostly parakeets and doves. Passerines are almost entirely absent – at Yadanabon Zoo I saw only hill mynahs; at Naypyitaw Zoo only a single red-billed magpie; at Yangon Zoo only hill mynahs, red-whiskered bulbuls, Java sparrows and black-headed munias. There are a lot of very common wild passerines in Burma which would make good display birds, such as hoopoes and various babblers and starlings, so their absence is a little surprising. I'm not sure if it is because there is no desire to bother with them, or if they do but don't have the expertise to keep them alive. In general the birds tend to be housed relatively well. The individual aviaries aren't huge but they aren't too small either. The Yangon and Yadanabon Zoos both have very large (they could be termed “huge”) aviaries for waterfowl and wading birds, and the Naypyitaw Zoo also has two huge walk-through aviaries.
Reptiles are fairly restricted, there being only a few species displayed and mostly the same species at each zoo. Surprisingly, given the shoddy way other animals are housed here and how reptiles often get the short end of the stick in western zoos, in Burmese zoos the reptiles are usually housed very well with large enclosures. There seems to be a lot of effort put into breeding the endangered local tortoises which is brilliant to see. (There are also stand-alone breeding facilities for tortoises dotted around the country, but I have not included them in the scope of this article).