With a couple of days stop-over in Singapore I made a long-overdue re-visit to Singapore Zoo. I’ve been to Singapore many times and to the Jurong Bird Park about six times but for some reason I’ve only ever been to the zoo once and that was back in 2004 so it was definitely time to go back and see what was what. I enjoyed the visit very much, but because the zoo has been discussed on here many times and has many threads, rather than do a review I’ll just give my impressions of what I thought.
The first impression one gets when entering the zoo (apart for how popular it is!) is how lush the vegetation is: it really does deserve its self-proclaimed moniker of “rainforest zoo”. However the over-riding impression I get, both on the original visit and on this one, is how very small so many of the cages are. Everyone raves about Singapore Zoo and says how wonderful and natural it all is, but many of the cages are no better than those in any other Asian zoo. You can dress up a tiny cage with mock-rock and put plants around the outside, but its still a tiny cage. The babirusa pen for instance is tiny, the white tiger island is a joke, most of the cat cages (especially the ocelots’) are miniscule, the guanacos really look like they’re in a holding pen before being boxed for shipment somewhere else. Its quite sad because Singapore Zoo really is the best zoo in Asia, and compared to all the others it is very well-financed. The other major criticism I felt while there was that the hamadryas baboon enclosure is grossly overcrowded. Baboons may live in large troops in the wild but they’re not confined in one area together all day long every day. There was a huge amount of aggression amongst troop members. But the main thing about this exhibit is that it appeared to me that the poor Nubian ibex are basically confined to the small upper edge of the rock-work because of the sheer number of baboons in the lower area.
Having said all that though, there are good enclosures here as well. Many of the reptiles have large areas which is good to see as reptiles often get a raw deal in zoos, space-wise. Most of the monkey islands are of a reasonable size and quite attractive, apart for the awful-looking one for the lion-tailed macaques. (I could also bring up the aggression displayed by the patas monkeys towards the colobus that share the same island - just because two monkeys live on the same continent doesn’t mean they should be stuck on the same island together in a zoo!). My two favourite areas in the zoo were the Critter Longhouse (a series of indoor enclosures for small mammals) because I like small mammals and there were some species in here I’d never seen before such as the spotted mouse deer, Sri Lankan giant squirrel and Goeldi’s monkey (I know the latter is common in zoos but not over in my part of the world); and the Fragile Forest. For those not familiar with it, the Fragile Forest is a big walk-through aviary that houses not only birds but also an eclectic mix of butterflies, fruit bats, ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs, two-toed sloths, tree kangaroos, mouse deer and other animals.
A lot of money and time has been spent on the interpretation at the zoo. The signage isn’t of a standard format but differs throughout the grounds, which actually works quite well. Conservation messages are everywhere but they aren’t hammered into the visitors so they are probably better absorbed (I always think that if signage is too heavy-handed it just turns people away). There are animal statues all through the gardens which look good although the kangaroo has obviously had a few thousand kids posed upon its back for photographs!
My little camera has a video function which I never think to make use of but here are a couple of videos I made, of a leopard cat and spotted mouse deer. (I hope they work – the internet in Jakarta is so bad that each video took TWO HOURS to upload to youtube!!!)
The first impression one gets when entering the zoo (apart for how popular it is!) is how lush the vegetation is: it really does deserve its self-proclaimed moniker of “rainforest zoo”. However the over-riding impression I get, both on the original visit and on this one, is how very small so many of the cages are. Everyone raves about Singapore Zoo and says how wonderful and natural it all is, but many of the cages are no better than those in any other Asian zoo. You can dress up a tiny cage with mock-rock and put plants around the outside, but its still a tiny cage. The babirusa pen for instance is tiny, the white tiger island is a joke, most of the cat cages (especially the ocelots’) are miniscule, the guanacos really look like they’re in a holding pen before being boxed for shipment somewhere else. Its quite sad because Singapore Zoo really is the best zoo in Asia, and compared to all the others it is very well-financed. The other major criticism I felt while there was that the hamadryas baboon enclosure is grossly overcrowded. Baboons may live in large troops in the wild but they’re not confined in one area together all day long every day. There was a huge amount of aggression amongst troop members. But the main thing about this exhibit is that it appeared to me that the poor Nubian ibex are basically confined to the small upper edge of the rock-work because of the sheer number of baboons in the lower area.
Having said all that though, there are good enclosures here as well. Many of the reptiles have large areas which is good to see as reptiles often get a raw deal in zoos, space-wise. Most of the monkey islands are of a reasonable size and quite attractive, apart for the awful-looking one for the lion-tailed macaques. (I could also bring up the aggression displayed by the patas monkeys towards the colobus that share the same island - just because two monkeys live on the same continent doesn’t mean they should be stuck on the same island together in a zoo!). My two favourite areas in the zoo were the Critter Longhouse (a series of indoor enclosures for small mammals) because I like small mammals and there were some species in here I’d never seen before such as the spotted mouse deer, Sri Lankan giant squirrel and Goeldi’s monkey (I know the latter is common in zoos but not over in my part of the world); and the Fragile Forest. For those not familiar with it, the Fragile Forest is a big walk-through aviary that houses not only birds but also an eclectic mix of butterflies, fruit bats, ruffed and ring-tailed lemurs, two-toed sloths, tree kangaroos, mouse deer and other animals.
A lot of money and time has been spent on the interpretation at the zoo. The signage isn’t of a standard format but differs throughout the grounds, which actually works quite well. Conservation messages are everywhere but they aren’t hammered into the visitors so they are probably better absorbed (I always think that if signage is too heavy-handed it just turns people away). There are animal statues all through the gardens which look good although the kangaroo has obviously had a few thousand kids posed upon its back for photographs!
My little camera has a video function which I never think to make use of but here are a couple of videos I made, of a leopard cat and spotted mouse deer. (I hope they work – the internet in Jakarta is so bad that each video took TWO HOURS to upload to youtube!!!)
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