In October 2016 Delhi's National Zoo was closed to the public due to a bird flu scare. Some dead birds had tested positive for it, I think birds from the wild waterbird colonies within the zoo grounds rather than the zoo's captive birds, and it remained closed for the next three months. I visited just a couple of weeks after it had reopened. It is quite pleasant walking around the zoo in winter, because it is not too hot and the haze of pollution in the sky blocks the sun so no risk of getting burnt. I guess you choose between skin cancer and lung cancer in Delhi. Most of the photos I took look clouded because of all the smog. It was a Saturday and yet there were still big school-groups everywhere. The zoo is large enough that it doesn't feel crowded though. I went round first using the outside loop-road - going the opposite way to the arrows on the map - and this took about two hours. Then I spent another hour criss-crossing back and forth along the paths in the middle of the zoo, trying not to miss any of the enclosures. I was very impressed with the Delhi Zoo. I have only visited a few other Indian zoos but they were all pretty poor, and the zoo in neighbouring Sri Lanka (the Colombo Zoo) was downright atrocious. The Delhi Zoo is actually what I had expected the Mumbai Zoo to be like, but wasn't. It has mostly good enclosures although as expected also a few of the older less-acceptable cages which haven't been upgraded or replaced yet, and usually there is excellent signage, or often double signage (i.e. a newer more-informative sign and one of the older signs). Even the trees around the zoo have name-plates to identify the species which isn't common in zoos. The hooved stock are in large paddocks, usually well-treed with a dry moat at the front and a barrier (fence plus hedge) in front of that. Most of the ungulates are Indian species - e.g. nilgai, blackbuck (including "whitebuck"), and deer species - but there are a few exotics as well. The elephants (or elephant - I only saw one) was unchained in its paddock which was nice to see. The hippos had very small pens, although this is typical in many zoos unfortunately. Primates were almost all on largish planted islands. Even the chimpanzee island was heavily-planted. The carnivores were a mixed bag. The big cats were in the usual sort of largish moated enclosures, except the jaguars in poor tunnel-shaped cages. The bears had better-than-usual enclosures, moated and planted, but still not large. The small carnivores didn't do so well, and their cages rather let the zoo down. However their cages were still larger than is typical for Asian zoos and did at least have furniture in the shape of logs and branches; all also had straw-filled shelters to hide in which is unusual when it comes to small carnivore cages in Asian zoos. The aviaries were mostly in one area around the Bird House and while not particularly nice to look at were quite large and there was nothing wrong with them apart from being rather too bare for the pheasants. A lot of them were glass-fronted. The Bird House itself was closed to the visitors but you could see in at one point and the aviaries inside were the same style as the outside aviaries (large, glass-fronted). I got the impression a lot of birds had either left the collection or were off-show. The ones on-show were mostly large parrots and pheasants, with some birds of prey in another area. The Reptile House was an odd one. Almost every terrarium inside was a static display with plastic models of reptiles and dinosaurs. It was a very interesting way of doing things but nobody was actually paying attention to the displays - they would look in, see the model, and then just move on to try and find a real animal. There were some live reptiles signposted as being in a few of the tanks, but most were either hidden or absent. I only saw one Indian rock python, one Bengal monitor, and the star tortoises. The crocodylians in the following species lists were housed in outside pools elsewhere in the zoo. There were still small sections of the zoo blocked off, and especially the birds seemed to be mostly either off-show or gone. But it certainly didn't feel like an emptied zoo, more like your regular zoo with some sections being upgraded. The best animal at the zoo was the chousingha or four-horned antelope. I always seem to miss these at zoos which are supposed to have them. I thought I wasn't going to see them here either, after going round the whole zoo and not seeing any. I had seen a couple of arrowed signs pointing towards where they were supposed to be, but not found their enclosure. Finally, right at the end I did it. One chousingha. I couldn't see any others, so maybe they just have one left. It sort of looks like a cross between a gazelle and a muntjac. Very cool animal. And it was one of the few "new" animals at the zoo for me. (Otherwise just chinkara and Indian wolf; Indian fox would have been new too, but I didn't see that one in its cage).
SPECIES LISTS: MAMMALS: *Grey Langur (unseen, so not sure which one specifically) *Rhesus Macaque *Bonnet Macaque *Lion-tailed Macaque *Hamadryas Baboon (unseen) *Hoolock Gibbon *Common Chimpanzee (unseen) *Asian Elephant *Indian Rhinoceros *Sambar *Sika *Barasingha *Manipur (?) Brow-antlered Deer (presumably this subspecies but the signage wasn't entirely clear) *Chital (Spotted Deer) *Hog Deer *Common Muntjac *Nilgai *Blackbuck (including white ones) *Chinkara *Chousingha (Four-horned Antelope) *Gaur (not seen) *African Buffalo *Goral *Common Hippopotamus *Wild Pig *Bengal Tiger (orange and white) *Asian Lion (and maybe African Lion - I somehow completely missed seeing any lions, even though they were marked on the map as being in two places) *Jaguar *Jungle Cat *Indian Wolf *Golden Jackal *Indian Fox (not seen) *Sloth Bear *Asiatic Black Bear *Striped Hyaena *Small Indian Civet *Common Palm Civet *Indian Crested Porcupine BIRDS: *Emu *Common Cassowary *Black Swan *domestic Geese *Great White Pelican *Ring-necked Pheasant (signed but not seen) *Kalij *Silver Pheasant *Edward's Pheasant *Golden Pheasant *Blue Peafowl *Red Junglefowl *Egyptian Vulture *Brahminy Kite *Black Kite *Shikra *Barn Owl *Indian Eagle Owl (labelled as "Great Horned Owl Bubo bubo") *Brown Fish Owl *Blue and Gold Macaw *Military Macaw (signed but not seen) *Illiger's Macaw (signed but not seen) *Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (signed but not seen) *Greater Sulphur-crested Cockatoo *Little Corella *Cockatiel *Indian Ringneck (and mutations) *Alexandrine *Plum-headed Parakeet *African Grey Parrot *Bank Mynah REPTILES: *Mugger *Gharial *Spectacled Caiman *Indian Star Tortoise *Water Monitor *Bengal Monitor *Indian Rock Python *Indian Sand Boa (Eryx johni) *Indian Cobra *Diademed Snake (Spalerosophis diadema) *Common Rat Snake *Dog-faced Water Snake
and see this thread for various bad news items: Delhi National Zoological Park - National Zoological Park (New Delhi)
Two new antelope sounds good @Chlidonias! But Indian fox would have been a nice addition too. You hadn't seen Indian Wolf at Singapore Night Safari? Will photos be forthcoming? Keen to see Whitebuck.
oh, well maybe I have seen Indian wolf after all then. I forgot about the Singapore ones. (I only keep wild lists for myself so I don't always remember which animals I've seen in zoos in the past). I wanted to see Indian fox in the wild at the Little Rann of Kutch but only saw desert foxes (which are a small subspecies of red fox). I didn't get to see chinkara, chousingha, or Indian wolves in the wild either unfortunately. The chinkara are very nice gazelles (but I didn't take photos of them because of where they were in the enclosure), and the chousingha was great. I was only using my small lens so I'm not sure how the photos of the latter species will turn out, and same for the whitebuck. I will be uploading photos at some point but not sure when - I still have all the Colombo Zoo ones to go as well.
I'm not up to date with your trip, but I guess you are still travelling? Looking forward to seeing the photos, probably worth noting here when they go up so we know! What sort of exhibits did the Chousingha and muntjac (small ungulates) have? Same as for larger hoofstock or were they not moated so you could get up-close views of them? You didn't take any pictures of a species you've never seen before? Not even a crappy record shot? Whaaat...?
still travelling, but I left India almost two weeks ago (which has passed by remarkably quickly without me getting much done since!). It wasn't really worth taking photos of the chinkara. They were behind a whole lot of chainlink (in the corner of their enclosure) so it just would have looked like small gazelles behind a whole lot of chainlink. Not very interesting. Seeing you asked about the Chousingha enclosure, I uploaded the photos specifically for that species (enclosure, sign, animal) - Delhi National Zoological Park - Photo Galleries | ZooChat - but basically much like the enclosures for the large ungulates. In the review I noted that all the photos looked hazy from the smog, but now I look at them on my laptop they look okay. It must have been the haze of smog in front on my camera screen instead (!). Anyway, whenever I put the rest of the photos in the gallery I will post a note both here and on my trip thread.
Just looking at the zoo map you uploaded and it states they have African elephants, going by your review this doesn't seem to be the case. Does the enclosure looked lived in or have they genuinely got none left?
that elephant enclosure was deserted, and looked like it had been for some time. I think they only had the one Asian elephant too (in a different enclosure). There were a few species on the map-board which were no longer present.
They had 1.1 in 2015/16 according to CZA official listings. But it may well have been they have "lost" one since. No African elephant have been at Delhi Zoo for quite some time now.
