I went to the Taipei zoo yesterday and when i saw those “not very happy” animals I came to the conclusion:
There should be no zoo unless you can make them happy there.
Have you ever been to the building where they keep the animals that sleep at date time and go out at night time? (sorry…i don’t know how to call them in engish…) I am telling you that there’s nothing sadder than those animals. They’re kept in a small,samll,and samll room where there’s no natural things surround…concrete walls,plastic trees (though some of them are real)shitti food…there’s no hope for them. Can you imagine spending the rest of your life there? And the hippo pool was sooooo dirty cuz all their poo poo melt in it…tigers area was sad,too. They lost their hunting skill and can only walk circles to show their being anxious…
I don’t know,maybe the reason we have zooes is becuz we want to educate our kids and people can hang out on the weekends. Yes,i did see a lot of happy faces in the zoo,kids and adults. But what about those animals? They belong to the nature and human beings have no right to interfere their life. I mean,if we want to have zooes then we should do a better job than just keeping them in a samll concrete room. Creat a better environment for them. I’ve been to the zoo in Singapore and that’s better. Still i hope that we can REALLY make those animals happy if we have to have zooes. You look at their eyes and they’ll tell you how much they miss the nature.
I’ve lived here for five years and been too horrified just thinking about the conditions at Mucha Zoo to go there - as far as I’m concerned, the wild animals markets in China serve as the best/worst example of how the Chinese regard animals, whether they’re kept in cages to eat OR educate - you don’t have to imagine the glee of the Mucha zoo-keepers when something like a tiger dies of boredom, sure they have a VERY lucrative line in endangered animal parts for various soups and tonics…
Saying that, Singapore Zoo is amazing and the animals DO have lots of space. And if I remember rightly (I was wasted) the conditions at Amsterdam Zoo aren’t particularly comforting, neither those at the old London Zoo (is that still there?). Steve Irwin’s place in Australia is green, lush and spacious - a good example of how to keep and breed animals in captivity, although his “new” Indian elephants were a bit forlorn.
But at least the Mucha people don’t (publically) sell their animals for food - check out animalsasia.org/ for bear rescue in China info and their work to halt wild animal markets.
While I am generally anti-zoo, they can be of use in conservation work.
To date, the most successful animal restoration project in Taiwan has been with the Formosan sika deer. It is an endemic lowland subspecies that favors open grassy plains. The sika deer went extinct in the wild in the late 1960s. There were, however, small captive populations in commercial farms and at the Taipei Zoo, and these stocks were used to establish a captive breeding facility in Kenting National Park in 1984. The population in Kenting has grown to about 300, of which half are now in the wild.
(Note: Although the Formosan sika deer is not native to Green Island, there is a population of about 500 roaming the island. They were brought over from the Taidong area about 125 years ago to be raised on farms. After the price of antlers fell sharply in the 1980s they were released into the wild. As an alien - and more importantly aninvasive - species the deer does not belong on the island!)
there shoud be no zoo unless…
…you get to eat the animals later.
I have posted this elsewhere in a former zoo thread, but most of you don’t remember the original zoo – across from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (now a children’s amusement park).
That was quite a place, very old style with lions in cages made of stone and iron bars. Looked very 1800s. The animals there were pretty pathetic as well.
I do recall when the Mucha Zoo first opened they were going to have this big enclosure with live butterflies…I went there the first week and the ground was littered with dead butterflies…only a few were flitting around.
I once went up the little valley behind the butterfly enclosure and it was wonderful. The path goes up one side and down the other and the middle is a creek planted with butterfly-attractive flowers. Every so often there are little cleared areas at the side of the path where the staff dump chopped up pineapples. At the right time of year the air is thick with butterflies.
The rest of the zoo is a sad, sad place, though. Depresses me no end. I’d like to force all zoo staff to spend time at this zoo so they could learn how it should be done.
Pay a visit if you’re ever on Jersey.
Street Dog wrote [quote] the conditions at Amsterdam Zoo aren’t particularly comforting, neither those at the old London Zoo (is that still there?)[/quote]
Yes, London Zoo is still there in Regent’s Park but a lot of the larger animals have been moved to Chessington Zoo where there have more space. The remaining animals have new houses which are much better than the ones I saw 15 years ago.
They spend loads of money on getting animals like koalas but spend next to nothing on preserving endemic species like the Formosan black bear and its natural habitat. That’s pretty sad.
My favorite zoo memory: some kind of monkey (about half our size) with big fat cheeks that makes a sound like “whoooooop whoooooop whoooooop!” Some Taiwanese started doing the same thing to encourage the monkeys, so pretty soon you had a bunch of Taiwanese whooping it up on one side of the fence, and a bunch of monkeys doing the same thing on the other. The ending of “Animal Farm” came to mind…
The news programs will never do an expose of zoo conditions here, because they depend on the zoo for their daily “cuddly animal” stories. I’d swear that some of them have reporters stationed there full-time!
There were some horses kept in appalling conditions at the back of the Taichung Guinness Book of Records Museum (while it was still operational - now it’s just a record attempt witness centre).
They obviously had no idea how to look after horses; the poor beasts were just skin and bone.
I, too, was worried about what I’d find the first time I went to Taipei’s zoo. I was expecting the usual Asian zoo - very dirty, small cages and miserable animals. However, actually I found that the zoo here is quite good. When you consider the size of the average Taipei apartment, the enclosures at Mucha are actually pretty roomy. Give credit where credit is due - this is the best zoo I’ve seen in Asia.
I recently visited the Taipei Zoo. As much as I am opposed to the idea of caging up animals in artificial environments, I am fascinated by them and love to visit zoos when I can. That said, though, I find that it is lacking compared to zoos back in the U.S. Although, as one poster put it, you should see Shanghai’s zoo. That one does take the cake as one of the worst probably in the world.
You haven’t visited Singapore’s, right? It’s internationally renowned, and it’s beautiful. Lots of room, moats rather than bars and cages, and you can see some of the animals from amazingly close up.
[quote=“daasgrrl”]You haven’t visited Singapore’s, right? It’s internationally renowned, and it’s beautiful. Lots of room, moats rather than bars and cages, and you can see some of the animals from amazingly close up.
Muzha is huge … but all the space is for the visitors, not for the animals. And the absolutely worse thing you can see, is during weekends, when all those illmannered kids start screaming at the animals, knocking on the glass …
One positive thing they have going though, is that you can “adopt” an animal. I believe it’s 1000 NT a year, and the native Taiwanese species are included.
Maybe I shouldn’t admit it, but I used to work at the Taipei City Zoo a few years ago. It was certainly a step down from western zoos I have worked in, but I was humbled by the knowledge and efforts of the zoos staff. As usual they are underfunded, and the zookeepers often do their best. I asked one keeper why he worked at the zoo, and he said that he hated zoos but felt that working in one was the only way to improve things. I thought that this was a pretty intelligent reply and he was certainly making a difference.
Anyone who has been to the Taipei zoo over the years will have noticed that things are improving slowly and within the budgetary constraints that they have. It is true that a lot was spent on such exhibits as the koalas, but the return on the number of visitors that have visited the zoo to see the koalas made it all worthwhile.
Having been to Shanghai zoo I can concur that it is the worst zoo I have ever been to. The zookeepers there have no interest nor knowledge in zoo husbandry. They work for the government and are assigned to work at the zoo. I have been there on three occasions, and on each occasion I saw dead animals in exhibits, some of which were in advanced states of decomposition.
Yeah, Taipei’s not the best, but it is improving! Try to visit as often as you can as this is the best way of actually helping the animals there!!
