Seoul Zoo is huge, a whole-day sort of zoo. Unfortunately summer is not the best time to visit because it is not only appallingly hot but it is also the rainy season. When it rains you've got a choice of just getting drenched by the rain or wearing a rain poncho which then acts like a sauna and cooks you from the inside so you end up almost as wet with sweat. There was a huge thunderstorm when I was there which kept everyone under cover for over an hour and turned the roads into torrents of water. South Korea now tops my list of places I've been with the heaviest rain! Check out the map to see what I'm talking about in the following discussion. http://www.zoochat.com/1659/guide-map-seoul-zoo-244137/ I missed quite a chunk of the zoo entirely because it is so big but I saw the most important bits. To give you an idea it took me two hours to just go from the entrance, past the flamingoes, and through the Insectarium, Nocturnal House and Tropical Birds Hall. I took a few photos of the flamingoes near the entrance (Chilean, greater, Caribbean and lesser), moved through the Australian section rather breezily (just your common Australian fare – cassowary, emus, red kangaroos and wallaroos), and came across the brilliant Insectarium. This is a mix of mounted and live invertebrates, with quite a few local species as well as dozens of tanks of mygalomorphs. Some interesting giant centipedes, scorpions, land crabs and others rounded everything out. I took some photos of a few of the more interesting ones but the tanks weren't much good for photography in general, with condensation and dirty glass. The Nocturnal Pavilion was the usual mix of average and terrible enclosures. The crested porcupine enclosures were miniscule, but some others weren't too bad. I was hoping there might be some interesting mammals in here but the full species list was (in order of appearance) masked palm civet, slow loris, Egyptian fruit bat, collared scops owl, “hedgehog” (presumably the local Amur hedgehog, but I didn't see it), European eagle owl, tawny owl, Ural owl, brown hawk owl, African crested porcupine, douroucouli, and kinkajou. It was starting to spit a little now, as I made my way into the Tropical Birds Hall which from the outside really reminded me of the Bronx Zoo's bird house with its cylinder style. There wasn't anything too unusual in here, but it was nicely down with very tall aviaries (tall enough to be viewed from two different levels). As I said, just those areas had already taken me two hours to get through, and as I continued on towards the South American Pavilion (where there was supposed to be armadillos, and hence my main reason for going to the zoo) the rain suddenly starting absolutely hammering down, with thunder and lightning and the whole works. I took quick shelter under an overhang by the pheasant aviaries and waited for it to pass. And waited and waited. After half an hour I started thinking it was silly to let rain stop me, and it seemed to be lessening, so I put on my poncho and stepped out, only to find that the paths were completely flooded and within a couple of seconds my trousers were as soaked as if I'd stepped in a knee-deep pond. I found another (better) shelter and waited it out for another half an hour. As soon as it died I headed off, but only got as far as the bird of prey aviaries before the rain returned and I had to take shelter again. Eventually I made it to the South American Pavilion. Around the outside are enclosures for guanaco, llama, mara, capybara, Brazilian tapir and giant anteater. Most of these weren't out but the indoor quarters are viewable from inside the pavilion. Fully-indoor enclosures were for coatis, spider and capuchin monkeys, common raccoons, toco toucans and a number of reptiles. These weren't pretty cages, concrete floored and made of steel and welded mesh, but they were certainly tall, probably somewhere between 30 and 40 feet high. Best animals in this Pavilion were giant anteater (looked like two asleep and one active), tamandua (asleep), two-toed sloths (in several enclosures, so I'd guess maybe six or seven), and a six-banded armadillo being very active and photogenic. Albino coypu can also be seen, and South American tree porcupines. It was getting on in the day, so I skirted quickly past the deer (including Pere David's deer), bison, bears, red panda, and European otter. (I say quickly but it still took some walking). The wolf cages on the map contained coyotes. The Fox Pavilion appeared to be where the wolves and dholes were. I tried to find the North Korean Pavilion but couldn't (it may have been blocked from foreign visitation...) but I think it was what was holding raccoon dogs, badger, and some more wolves. I also visited the Oriental Pavilion which was an interesting mix of primates and reptiles. And that was pretty much that. I passed the Ape Pavilion and took a couple of photos, and I took photos of the giraffe signage for DavidBrown but it's all in Korean. It'll be a while before any photos get uploaded though. All in all, it is a very good zoo, in the top level of the Asian zoos. You could compare it quite well to western zoos: a mix of good and not so good enclosures, but the worst ones are no worse than the bad ones in western zoos.
Thanks for typing up the review, and it is really too bad that you became drenched in the process as it would have been nice for you to see the entire zoo. One surprise is the size of the facility, as often it can be difficult to tell judging an establishment based on its map. I've been collecting zoo maps all my life and have close to 800 of them but there are times when zoos have large fold-out maps and yet I can tick off the facility in 2 hours or less. At other times the maps are very small (like the one in Omaha) and yet it takes all day to see the zoo. Seoul Zoo is definitely larger than I would have estimated and I imagine that it must attract millions of visitors each year due to the city's enormous population.
Congrats on seeing the armadillo! Was it everything you hoped it would be? Sounds like a pretty decent zoo, but with no really rare-in-captivity species?
the armadillo was brilliant!! I wish we had some in NZ (I even more hope to see them in the wild some day!). The zoo is huge, but no really unexpected species although there were a few interesting subspecies (Ursus arctos yesoensis for example, and a weird-looking badger), but there were some nice local invertebrates. Some new "zoo ticks" for me included giant anteater, tamandua, armadillo, coypu, European otter, Pere David's deer and some other things like that....you know, species common in European collections but not in Australasia or southeast Asia). I don't keep zoo life lists though, so I don't always remember if I've seen certain species before. Many of the cages were actually quite small (especially for the carnivores) but on the adequate side of small rather than the tiny side of small, if you see what I mean. They were no worse than some of the smaller cages in western zoos. But it does mean it would be a personal opinion as to whether it was a "good" zoo or a "poor" zoo. It's definitely better than most Asian zoos. Because of its size the zoo would be best visited in the spring or autumn when it would be very pleasant strolling around. In the summer it is just too darn hot and humid.
Nice review Chlidonias ! Thanks for it. Among the tropical birds, were there only Asian species or also African and Middle- and South American and can you tell something about the species seen ?
I didn't keep a list of species (as I sometimes do for Zoochat) because I knew I wouldn't get around the whole zoo. But.... In the Australian section were emus and common cassowary; ostriches in the African section; toco toucans in the South American Pavilion; and there were the four species of flamingoes at the entrance to the zoo. The owls in the Nocturnal Pavilion are listed in the review earlier. I only saw some of the birds of prey because of the rain (bateleur, Andean condor, common buzzard, cinereous vulture, and some other eagles and vultures I can't remember). I didn't get inside the massive Large Waterfowl Aviary at all (the map says "red-crowned crane, pelican, tundra swan") or to Stork Village ("white stork, crowned crane, black-faced spoonbill"). I hardly saw the Poultry Pavilion (mostly appeared to be various domestic chickens). The Tropical Birds Hall had a map of the world at the entrance with pictures of birds on the appropriate land-masses which had me excited because there was a Congo peafowl and a booted racket-tail on there, but it turned out not to represent what they had on show. The first side of aviaries (so tall that they were viewable from two levels of the building) held toco toucans, crowned pigeons, violaceus touraco, various cockatoos (Moluccan, umbrella, sulphur-crest and I think others). These were all glass-fronted. Upstairs was a walk-in aviary (two stories high) for macaws and amazons, and I also saw a hawk-headed parrot and budgies in here. There was another walk-through aviary for "lovebirds" (budgies), and one for rainbow lorikeets with a separated aviary for gouldian finches. So nothing exciting, but nicely presented. Rather surprisingly, all the birds displayed are common zoo fare (except maybe the black-faced spoonbills).
Thanks for your review and I hope that your journey is going well. I love traveling with you on your journeys via your updates.
Maybe??? Ye gods, there's ONE specimen of Black-faced Spoonbill in the whole of the western hemisphere....and that one is off-exhibit [at Walsrode].
oh, I knew there were some in Europe but I didn't know it was only one! Pity I didn't visit the aviary and take some photos then. I'm sure I'll see them in some other zoos along the way so I'll do that.
So you would rate armadillo above giant anteater? I wish we could have both in NZ (and Australia I suppose)! Were the zoo and aquarium expensive?
yes, armadillo over giant anteater. Although both are good! Also the armadillo was really cute and active, the anteaters less so, so that may have had something to do with it. The zoo is cheap as chips at 3000 Won (as a rough guide in my head I say 1000 Won to one NZ dollar but that's not very exact). The Aquarium is 19,500 Won so quite a bit more expensive (more expensive than most NZ aquariums!! ....but it does have African manatees).
photos now in the gallery including giraffe signage for DavidBrown (I assume he can read Korean) and lots from the Insectarium because that was cool. Unfortunately the individual mammal and bird shots (including of the interesting badger they had) were all taken on my big camera, which decided it didn't like its memory card anymore and I can't access those photos. Seoul Zoo Gallery
I visited Seoul Zoo today and really the area is very large, what dont means the collection is that large! Having read Chlidonias review I decided to first look at what really interest me: birds and primates and if there should be time left I would see all others, finally I could see the complete collection and even the dolphin and seal show and the botanical garden (not worth to loose time with). The animal collection itself is very generic with most of the species being very common in western zoos and like already told here the enclosures range from bad to good with some very good ones. Most of the animals where locked outside and It was very hot and very crowded, so I think it is very stressfull for them in some ways. I didn´t like the classical music near the bird collection and the stinky smell of street food inside some places of the zoo. I noted some interesting things like 8 andean condors one display, tapirs had a new born baby. I didn´t see theier gorilla and it looked like this area was empty for some time already. In the nursery station they had many babies, including a young leopard, organgutan, chimp, tigers, gibbons what gaves me a feeling they still have the very asian style of remove the babies to present them in a closer view to the visitors. The insectarium was quite good, principally the spiders with a very diverse collection. Many of theier pavillions as they have a green house style wich could be better ussed. Having also visited Everland in the past I can say Seoul Zoo is much better but Everland have a big plus the Golden Snub-nosed monkeys!
since getting back to NZ I have taken the faulty memory cards into a camera shop to see if the photos could be recovered, and they could not. So all the photos from my big camera from the zoo (and some other places in South Korea) are gone forever.
yes I did: http://www.zoochat.com/252/visit-august-2013-a-332321/ There are also photos in the gallery.
