Kobe (Oji park ) zoo is in an urban park with a small funfair attached. They have giant pandas and in 2003 when I went there was quite a lot of panda mania in the city. (This seems to be a big thing in Japan, people love exotic species. The students in my school went to Zoorasia and came back obsessed with okapis and things like sea otters and belugas often feature in cartoons and advertising campaigns). The pandas have a semi-circular enclosure which isn’t very exciting but is open and fairly well planted and the pandas are often visible and active. The nearby bear enclosures are depressing barred shoe boxes with enormous brown bears in a tiny cage. Hippos and white rhinos have ok enclosures with a large deep pool for the hippos (but not much room on land) and reasonable and naturalistic landscaping which isn’t that common in Japan. Nearby is a dreary row of pens with single or pairs of deer or antelope (I can’t remember exactly – I think the map says Sitatunga), kangaroos, ostriches and a pen with very high fences for giraffes. Not very attractive. Asian elephants have a traditional small and old-looking enclosure. There is a round house with sandy glass fronted enclosures for big cats - lions, amur tiger, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard - with rocky backgrounds. Sea lions and polar bears had underwater viewing, the polar bears doing better than the other bears but still a fairly traditional polar bear enclosure. There’s a museum or science centre which also included king penguins in a white tiled enclosure that wasn’t very inspiring. I can’t remebr much about the primates but they have gorillas, chimps, orang utans and gibbons. I seem to remember an enclosure for gorillas or chimps which was somewhat like Edinburgh's old chimp enclosure with a similar viewing corridor. There’s a newer rather twee childrens zoo area which is a bit Disney on a budget where you’ll find squirrels, red pandas, otters and the koala house which is a modern building like a barn with glass fronted enclosures consisting of a sandy floor with branches. There’s an outdoor enclosure too. Some aiviaries dotted around and pens for storks and cranes too. So in brief, a fairly traditional zoo, compact, not very big, you could see it in half a day, no enclosures which will make you go wow, with all the picture book animals. I also remember pallas cats and giant anteaters.
Oji Zoo is now investigating the cause. They say "it might be because the baby couldn't have enough milk, or tampled which are the major causes of death of newborn pandas". Sad anyways.....
There is a theory that if the cub had been born with another companion, that the mother would abandon one and look after the stronger one, I'm having trouble getting on to many sites at the moment had this panda given birth before?
Panda Death Kou Kou the male Giant Panda has died after being knocked out to collect semen as part of the zoo's attempts to use AI to have a sucessful birth Panda in Japan zoo dies during breeding
China poised to sue Japan for compensation over dead panda - Telegraph (Xing Xing is the same panda as Kou Kou referred to in Nisha's post above)
Xing Xing = Long Long = Ko Ko = Kou Kou and the female panda is known as Tan Tan, Shuan Shuan and Dan Dan.
Kobe Oji has currently an Amur leopard pair: Pon-chan 0,1 (Pong) and Amuro 1,0 Pong was born in Hiroshima on 12.11.2008 and Amuro 5.5.2010 in Novosibirsk.
The Oji zoo has recieved a male snow leopard from the Moscow zoo. 名前は投票で決まります モスクワから神戸市立動物園にユキヒョウ“婿”入り - 神戸新聞 ｜ This kiji is
Koala Minato, the first koala to be birn in oji zoo in 17 years, has died from leukemia. コアラの「ミナト」白血病で死ぬ 王子動物園で１７年ぶり誕生 - 神戸新聞 ｜ This kiji is
Manul cat Pekkii has died from heart failure at the age of 12 最新ニュース｜神戸市立王子動物園 also in 2019, the zoo has received Lenya the Amur tiger from Leipzig
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/28f6f630c1d359bd5a3ff6d47a498f244ddb50a3 Female Jaguar Neira arrived from south America to be paired with Atos who has been alone since his s=designated pair Lola/Laura has deceased.
Adorable arrivals: Kobe zoo announces birth of twin jaguars - The Mainichi Twin Jaguars born. This is amazing because not only the mother is a founder, one of the babies is a female which is much needed in Japan’s male leaning Jaguar population.
Because gorillas are extremely rate in Japanese zoos, the empty gorilla enclosure is filled with gorilla cutouts. Maybe the AZA or the Australian ZAA could give some surplus males since primates cannot be imported to Japan from the EU.
神戸・王子公園はこう変わる！ 動物園をリニューアル、遊園地は廃止へ | タビリス Good news! They are getting rid of the waste of space known as the amusement park that is within the zoo. Bad new is that the amusement park grounds won’t be a part if the zoo grounds. It will be an American football/handegg stadium instead. The article mentions that the zoo will be renewed. The article mentions that Oji will use Tennoji as a reference.
I thought I could have done a better job at demonstrating the new gorilla enclosure so I decided to share a image and a news footage on the enclosure. one could say that this is for the best but I'd call this sad
