This review was written without re-reading any others on Zoochat because I didn't want my opinion to be modified. I'm not afraid of speaking my mind and being contrary to others' opinions. I expect some opposite responses. After I have re-read some threads I may make some additional notes. I have been to Singapore quite a few times and I have been to the bird park and the zoo several times, but I have always put off the Night Safari due to concerns over living space. My opinion of night zoos was that the animals get kept in far more restricted areas than in regular zoos because they need to be within view in a darker environment and it is relatively easy to disguise the boundaries and hide the smallness of the enclosure because of the darkness. It is sort of the same principle on why nocturnal houses almost always give their inhabitants such crappy little holes to live in. However, the Singapore Night Safari always seems to get rave reviews from visitors so I thought I should see for myself. The park opens at 7.30pm and I got there at 8.30pm due to only having arrived in Singapore in the late afternoon. I took the tram ride first which winds around the park for about forty minutes or so past most of the big animals, and then did the four walking trails. What I found was that the park is too big! That may sound an odd criticism, but the walking trails are fairly long and there is only a limited amount of time to see everything due to the short opening times (7.30pm to midnight); and, further, if you are on public transport (bus and train combination) you can't stay until closing anyway or you can't get back to your hotel without forking out for a taxi! I was there until 11pm and I was really pushed for time to see everything. I wanted to just sit there and watch certain animals but that would have meant missing others and with the amount the place costs for entry you want to make sure you see everything!! I think it would be better if the walking areas were more concentrated so you could be more leisurely in your viewing. Anyway: I took the tram ride first to get the feel of the place. This was actually pretty depressing to be honest. A few of the enclosures were all right but most ranged in size between small and appallingly small. The striped hyaena, babirusa and especially the Cape buffalo enclosures were pitifully small. There was a bull elephant swaying hypnotically at the front edge of his tiny home. The Indian rhinos and bearded pigs were not much better off. You can see the striped hyaena enclosure from one of the walking trails as well, and can then appreciate even more how tiny it is, and you can also see the ruts worn across it from the hyaenas pacing back and forth non-stop. Just really sad. There were a couple of drive-through enclosures (rather than “drive-past”) and these were better but not by a lot. Most of the enclosures along the tram route were the typical Singapore Zoo style ones – a small grassy or concrete “platform” with a moat in front and the back and side boundaries dressed up in vegetation to hide them. Here there was the slight modification in that they were all long narrow “platforms” so the animals were close to the front at all times. Mostly the back boundary was well-hidden, often over a rise so it looked like the viewing area was just a part of a much larger enclosure (which of course it isn't) but in some – like the babirusa – it was painfully obvious where the fence lay. There were some nice species along the route (e.g. dhole, bearded pig, striped and spotted hyaenas, etc) and they were often very active rather than asleep, but I did wonder about some of the selection choices. Flamingoes and cranes? You just ask why. Others like the markhor and tahr were apparently trying to sleep which given that they aren't nocturnal isn't too surprising! On a scale of one to ten I would give the tram ride a two, based solely on the horrible animal enclosures. The walking trails are where the park really works though. There are four trails and they are mostly separate from the tram route. There were some small cages along the trails as well, but in general most of them were very good, even very large in several instances. And of course there are some knock-out species on show! It was while walking round the trails that I saw small mammals really should be displayed in a night zoo setting, and not in nocturnal houses. They can be given much larger cages, and they are much more active and natural in behaviour. There were still some odd species selections (birds such as sleeping cormorants are just pointless). I did the Fishing Cat Trail first as this leads off from the main tram station and it had the animal on it which I most wanted to see – the Malayan pangolin!! The pangolin enclosure is all right, not brilliant, not awful. The burrow has a glass front so you can see it where-ever it is. When I got there it was poking its nose out sniffing, wondering if it should venture forth. It got a third of the way out and then went back down into its burrow where I got to see it properly. An utterly fantastic brilliant spectacular awesome animal!! I could have stayed right there all night, but I had the whole rest of the walking trails to get round. On the Fishing Cat Trail the mouse deer have a very large enclosure, the fishing cat enclosure is very good, the civet cages are great. Really what I was thinking was that the enclosures weren't any larger than the tram route ones but the animals were smaller so are better off by a very large margin. I didn't like the slow loris “island” (branches over a pond so it can't escape) but the loris itself was cute as ever. I just wish I could find one in the wild!! The trails all link up to one another, with the Leopard Trail joining up from the Fishing Cat Trail. There were some very small porcupine enclosures along here, a small leopard cage, what looked to be a very small cage for golden cat, but also a large hog badger enclosure, a large cage for small-toothed palm civets, and the two stars of this trail, the tarsiers and giant flying squirrels. There were two tarsiers, looking very healthy and active, in a good-sized cage (could have been larger, but it was fine). Again, I could have stayed right there all night watching them. The flying squirrels are housed in a large walk-through “sciuriviary” (I just made that word up). I only saw three – two red-and-white giant flying squirrels and a Indian giant flying squirrel – but I saw them extremely well as they fed in the trees under the spotlights. It was interesting to see the red-and-whites scooting round the wall of the cage (on the wire) rather than using the trees or gliding. Honestly, if I went back to the Night Safari (which I won't be!) I would just spend my entire visit at the pangolin, tarsier and flying squirrels. The East Lodge Trail is mostly African animals and mostly follows part of the tram route (sloth bears, spotted hyaenas, bongos, etc). I had contemplated missing out this trail in order to spend longer with the tarsiers and squirrels, but there were red river hogs along there and I'm really glad I didn't skip it because right at the start of the trail is a glass-fronted enclosure with North Luzon cloud rats! I had forgotten they were here, and they aren't on the map yet, so I was rather surprised and delighted. They are amazing! They look like a cross between an American opossum and a slow loris. Brilliant! The Wallaby Trail seems a bit pointless. The Naracoorte Cave seems really pointless. A whole lot of money spent on a brilliant-looking cave system with only a few small terrariums inside. The cage for sugar gliders was extremely large in comparison to what most zoos give them, and the cage for brush-tailed possums was also a decent size. The Wallaby Trail ends back at the main tram station, so I nipped back up the Fishing Cat Trail to see the pangolin again. He was curled up asleep, his fat little belly heaving as he snored. So fantastic a creature! So, final verdict: not impressed! The enclosures along the tram route get an overall two out of ten from me. The walking trails get probably a six or seven on average, but many individual cages would be a nine or ten. The best species are Malayan pangolin, tarsier, North Luzon cloud rat, both the giant flying squirrels, hog badger, slow loris, small-toothed and common palm civets (I saw also a sign for large Indian civet I think it was but I didn't see any). If the Night Safari was composed solely of the walking trails I would have given the place a high rating because most of the enclosures are great and there is a lot of potential for such a concept. If it was composed solely of the tram route I would say avoid visiting entirely!
Well I agree that the brotherhood would be awesome to be part of. And I very much hope to join it soon. It really sucks for you though, you've seen everything now!
Wow, I've never seen the pangolins active in all my visits! You lucky bastard Why am I not surprised that you like the trails better! A true zoochatter indeed because almost every casual visitor rates the tram ride higher... I've seen nearly all the enclosures in the daytime, so I can tell you which ones are truly small - Indian Rhino, Cape Buffalo, Tiger (trail), Indian Wolf, the 2 bull Elephant enclosures, Golden Cat, Clouded Leopard and Serval. They do get larger off-show yards (as compared to those in daytime zoos) to compensate. The babirusa and striped hyena enclosures started out as larger exhibits but became subdivided into smaller segments over the years. The babirusa enclosure was divided to separate males from females (moratorium on breeding) and the striped hyena enclosure was divided to allow more animals to be displayed (increase viewing opportunities). The hyena enclosures aren't as small as you thought them to be though. They go some ways back up-slope but the hyenas always stay out front and pace along the same route.
how many pangolins are kept by the WRS do you know? I only saw one in the exhibit, and I would hope there wouldn't be more on show because otherwise the enclosure would be too small. The nearby sign implied they had multiple animals though.
pssh, even zooboy's seen a kakapo! (Zooboy28 and I both saw the same kakapo, at the Wellington Zoo hospital -- on the same day even without realising each other was there! Photos somewhere in that zoo's gallery. Hix saw a completely different kakapo. Pertinax has seen more than all three of us put together I think.)
I have visited three foreign zoos, all the three have red river hogs, and I missed all of them!!! I also missed the clouded rats both in Singapore and Bronx! During my visit to Night Safari in 2010, there were three pangolins on display; the bull elephant was doing the same "swaying hypnotically" thing. But the babirusa really surprised me, because we used to lose our way in the park, and didn't find any sign, just kept walking along a dark forest trail, then I heard there were the sounds of chewing twigs coming from the forest before us, and as we walked forward, the sound became louder and louder, then through the leaves I saw a large family of babirusas were feeding in the forest clearing before us! The first idea emerged from my brain was: "Oh how we come into the enclosure without realizing it! Does the keeper forget close the door?" Then after getting closer, I found there was a moat between us......But I don't think they are the same group displaying along the tram trail.
the cloud rats were off-display for years so they may not have been on show in 2010? There were two or three babirusa enclosures. One was on the walking trail (that was the largest of the three). The other babirusa were on the tram route and were in either one very small enclosure or two side-by-side miniscule enclosures (I think it was one enclosure originally but then divided in two).
The cloud rats went on show circa 2012; before that the enclosure housed Senegal bushbabies (2005 ~ 2007) and sugar gliders (2008 ~ 2011). The swaying bull elephant nearly killed his mahout in 2001 during one of his regular walks around the park (daytime, before the park was open to visitors). After that incident the park stopped free contact with the bull, but did not have any protected contact facility. The bull was housed in his tiny, indoor stable for several years while the park dragged its feet on whether to send it away to another facility or keep it. It was eventually decided to keep the bull and build proper protected contact facilities. This took a couple years as it was literally built around the bull's stable and had to be done slowly. So the bull had spent many years locked up in a tiny cell and is a psychologically damaged animal. He is still able to socialize normally with the other elephants though and is able to breed naturally.
