Night Safari News » Singapore Night Safari

18-12-2010

I do hope the Singapore Zoo become so foresighted as to initiate a separate programme for breeding Sumatran elephants with the evt. introduction of several more individual eles from Sumatra (incl. 1-2 bulls).

I personally deplore the fact that several EU zoos maintain known separate ssp. Asiatic eles with other mainland eles. In order to conserve known ESU's zoos have a duty in that respect too. In the end, their hybridisation will serve no real conservation or educational purpose (viz the zoo mix lion debacle almost everywhere).

19-12-2010

AFAIK there are indeed two breeding Sumatran famales and two breeding Bornean females. For these, EU needs to import at least one bull of each form!

I agree that both Sumatran and Bornean elephants make very good candidates for separate breeding plans. Both are endangered and habitat degradation means that they no longer can become common in the wild, and are maintained in captivity in Asia now.

08-01-2011

I don't think that will happen in the near future. The 2 Sumatran females were brought in to the Zoo to take on "working" roles such as giving rides and being in the shows, and therefore freeing up the E.m.indica females to be part of the breeding programme.

The Zoo lacks the space to house a separate Sumatran elephant herd.

17-03-2011

Night Safari has announced the birth of a Sunda Pangolin in January:

Night Safari - What's Up

20-03-2011

And apparently not the first Sunda pangolin to be born.
It relates to 4+ individuals now at the NS.

23-03-2011

the first one died after a few days, so it could be the first succesfull captive bred pangolin birth ever in a zoo, if this little one survives

24-03-2011

very interesting

30-06-2011

After many years of trying, Night Safari has finally managed to breed the Clouded Leopard.

NIGHT SAFARI CELEBRATES A RARE FIRST WITH THE BIRTH OF TWO CLOUDED LEOPARDS Wildlife Press

30-06-2011

That is some cool news.
Where did the parents originate?

30-06-2011

both the clouded leopard parents came from Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand

01-07-2011

I can finally also see some windows of opportunity between Singapore and Europe concerning this species and e.g. Asiatic lions.

24-08-2011

An update video on the male elephant Nila born at Night Safari earlier this year:

17-09-2011

The newly-appointed CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS, parent company of the Singapore Zoo, Jurong Bird Park, Night Safari and River Safari) Ms Isabella Loh has been berated online for her last-minute cancellation of the Night Safari's immensely popular "Halloween Horrors" event that was due to start on 30th September and run for a month. The event was created by the former CEO, who left in July this year. The event even won a local tourism award last year. The event has consistently drawn the highest visitor attendance for the Night Safari in its last 5 runs.

The new CEO cited that the annual Halloween event, which transforms the entire park into a huge "haunted house" with scare actors and props, is not in line with the family-friendly and conservation focus of the park. It is a valid reason, but the event could always be discontinued from next year onwards. The sudden cancellation was appalling for the following reasons:

1. The event was conceptualized by a group of local Events Management students as part of their graduation project. They have been working on it for 7 months and were down to final rehearsals when the event was called off. While their grades will not be affected, their hard work has gone down the drain. Their disappointment is evident and many other empathetic youths have attacked the WRS Facebook wall with a barrage of negative and nasty comments. Wildlife Reserves Singapore | Facebook

2. Over US$700,000 has already been spent on the event. The cancellation means this amount will be wasted and cannot be recovered. It is disgusting for an organisation which seeks public donations to be so callous about this huge sum of money.

3. Insider sources revealed that the new CEO, who is a staunch Christian, objected to the event because she likened Halloween to "devil worship". The last thing a zoo needs is a religious nut for a boss. As debated on Zoochat before, my view is that zoos should remain secular organisations free of religious influences.

This issue has been trending on Yahoo and Google searches in Singapore for the past couple of days. Related news links:

"Halloween Horrors" at Night Safari cancelled - Channel NewsAsia
Halloween shocker | The New Paper
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/furor-over-...cellation.html

Personally, I'm always worried when management changes as it is disruptive. I'm not getting good vibes about the new CEO. I hope she doesn't mess up River Safari which is due to launch next October.

28-09-2011

this is all pretty bad publicity for the zoo, and even if she has religious objections to the event to pull the plug on it after so much money and effort has gone into it is just appalling. Any further news on it Zooish?

30-09-2011

@Chlidonias: The CEO has clarified she's a Buddhist and the decision was not religiously-motivated, BUT admitted that she referred to the Halloween set-up at the park as "infrastructure for devil worship" when communicating to her staff... I must add that Singapore adopted the modern American form of Halloween (dressing up, trick-or-treating and silly scares); not many people here are concerned by Halloween's Pagan roots.

The CEO had been giving disparate and unconvincing reasons for the cancellation over the last week, each of which has been picked apart by the public. She first claimed the event was not in line with the park's "wholesome" and "family-oriented" image. The next day she claimed the cancellation was due to negative feedback from members and sponsors about the relevance of Halloween to conservation. Then she claimed the event was too scary after previewing the haunted house. Finally she claimed that the Halloween event was not popular (when the WRS Annual Report proudly proclaimed record attendance for the previous Halloween event).

When she finally ran out of excuses, she ordered a media blackout. WRS has refused to answer press queries, rejected tv interviews and has all but abandoned their Facebook page (which now has endless pages of nasty remarks). This week WRS wasted more money by appointing a well-known "Public Relations Crisis Management" company (Burson-Marsteller) to sort out this mess.

The CEO has also been accused of ordering the release of fireflies at a night-time event at the Zoo, despite having been told by her staff that the Zoo was not the right habitat for the particular firefly species (which thrive in mangroves). She apparently wanted it done for "visual significance", to fool the public that the event had a conservation purpose. For that same event, she also insisted on the release of floating lanterns filled with wax into the reservoir bordering the Zoo, despite her staff advising against it out of concern that the aquatic wildlife may ingest the wax.

She apparently has also ordered significant budget cuts to the River Safari, particularly for the theming and landscaping works. I've already lowered my expectations for the project...

Someone was irked enough to set up this site with links to commentaries and news articles on the debacle: ISABELLA LOH