I know there are many less fortunate animals in the world, but I got the feeling that Taipei Zoo is more like a circus holding ground than a decent living environment or place of education and appreciation. I was going to list all the things that concerned me, but I’ll keep it to the Nocturnal House, big cat enclosures and lack of staff.
The Nocturnal House was damp, compact, stain ridden, lacking any greenery and full of lone and desperate looking animals. It felt like a dungeon.
The big cats were all pacing loops or figures of 8.
There were no staff to stop the public from knocking on glass screens, shouting, feeding animals, poking things through fences or using flash photography. The signs alone meant nothing to most kids and many adults.
Beyond a name board and fast fact, there was a real lack of educational information.
Oh, and out of all the attractions, McDonalds had the longest queue. How ironic.
Just glad to be home. I imagine many of the animals yearn for that feeling.
Are there any zoos around the world that are generally considered not only clean and well run but also considered to have achieved the target of well-being and “natural” habitat for the animals?
the nocturnal area is the worst yes…only one animal in each little area. And they put dead rats in there for food, they don’t even get to chase them. Those animals are bored to death!
I believe the San Diego zoo has a good reputation. I also visited a nice one on Jersey set up by Gerry Durrell in the late 50s.
Sydney has a very nice zoo, apparently.
I watched a reality show about zookeepers in Australia…can’t remember where though. Of course they don’t show the bad stuff…but the cages and holding areas looked great.
The Sydney zoo is pretty great from my somewhat limited experience, and they had a few exhibits or whatever they call them that were really well built around the animals (elephants, penguins, seals come to mind), but I don’t know that they’re widely respected for that… never been to San Diego. Washington, DC zoo is just OK, clean but not special and little weak on some of the animal areas. HK was tiny. Compared to Washington and HK, I think the overall number of exhibits in Taipei was pretty good, but I can’t speak to quality.
[quote=“jimipresley”]I’m no big fan of zoos, and I didn’t find the Taipei zoo particularly horrific. [/quote]Yes. You are correct. There are much worse places than the Taipei Zoo. However, I would like to go on record as saying that I don’t like any zoos in particular. I prefer the animals to be free and therefore believe that wild animal preserves such as Kruger National Park in South Africa are the best options for the animals.
[quote=“sandman”]I believe the San Diego zoo has a good reputation.[/quote]Yes, it does. I lived in SD for a number of years and went to the SD Zoo at least once a year when relatives and friends would come and visit. I’m not a fan of zoos, but SD does a pretty good job with it. They also manage the San Diego Wild Animal Park which is located in North San Diego County. There the animals are able to roam around in African Safari style enclosures. They’ve also got webcams set up so you can visit from your home in Taiwan.
Most zoos in Asia are bad. Even the best Asian zoos cannot compare to the best zoos in the USA, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. That said, of the Asian zoos I’ve seen, Taipei’s was the best, FAR better than anything I saw in China, and even better, in terms of enclosure size, than the zoo in Tokyo.
When people were taking flash photos in the nocturnal house in Taipei, I told them to stop it, but they got really angry with me.
San Diego Zoo is 100 acres (40 hectares). That’s a big zoo.
Kruger is 4,700,000 acres (if I did my calculations correctly).
Kruger, at 19,000 square kilometers, is over half the size of Taiwan.
I enjoy seeing animals up close in zoos, but once you’ve been to some of the great game reserves/parks in Africa, zoos just don’t seem the same.
15-20 years ago, a Taiwanese person got out of his car to pose with a lion at Kruger and was killed. When I went to Kruger, they had a little article about this at the entrance; a reminder to stay in your vehicle.
Same here. We lived in San Diego and visited the zoo often with visitors. It and San Diego’s Wild Animal Park are both very good (as artificial habitats go).
I thought the Denver and Portland zoos were also pretty good. In developed nations such as the US, I believe there’s been a huge raising in consciousness regarding zoo keeping over the past few decades and conditions have substantially improved wherever governments have the money to “do things right.” With that raising of consciousness, I think most people want captive animals to be treated more humanely. I understand that some feel all animal captivity is wrong, but it seems clear zoos do achieve some positive things: entertaining people, educating people about animals, helping inspire people to help animals/nature, breeding programs for seriously endangered species, etc.
So, I would bet that the best zoos are all in fairly wealthy, more developed nations, that have the money and education to do things right and the worst zoos are in poor, less developed nations that lack the money, education and understanding. Perhaps that’s obvious. Can you imagine the zoos in Cambodia, Afghanistan, etc.?
There’s a video on YouTube of a zoo in Iraq where the lions get fed live donkeys. I won’t post it here, because it’s quite disturbing. Especially the GIs filming it screaming with laughter. Search for it at your peril.
There was a book out a few years ago about the Baghdad zoo and this guy’s attempt to rescue the animals (from starvation, being eaten, etc) and resurrect the zoo in the early years of the war. Very interesting (if at times depressing) reading.
It also seems to depend on whether the zoo is in a ‘western’ nation or not. Japan’s rich, but Tokyo Zoo’s enclosures (except for the panda’s, which doesn’t need a large cage) were way too small. South Korea, while still a developing country, is pretty rich now, and its zoos were pretty bad.
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