zoo negara is malaysia's largest zoo from my knowledge. these days i usually shun asian zoos due to generally not enjoying my experience based on poor conditions, but due to this being a widely known zoo and malaysia being a relatively wealthy asian nation, i decided it might be worth the trip. in particular i was keen to see if they had any asian oddities that i hadn't seen before. overall, despite falling victim to some minor issues i have with zoos in general, and some issues i have with malaysian landscaping in general, zoo negara is pretty standard for what one would have expected of a western zoo in the early to mid nineties. the animals all appeared to be receiving good medical care but the exhibits was letting them down. there are many concrete floored exhibits. but most have climbing frames and ropes and all were hosed and spotlessly clean of feces. the collection at zoo negara is nothing to write home about. the primate, bird and reptile collections are particularly drab, and the zoo is virtually absent of any non african or asian animals. i saw not a single new world primate for example. below i will give an account of the major attractions around the zoo. ASIAN ELEPHANTS - standard fare. a bull and two cows share a small exhibit with a dangerous dry moat. fortunately they had little concrete and a mostly sand substrate. think taronga or melbourne's old exhibit and you have pretty much got the zoo negara one. AFRICAN SAVANNAH - easily the best exhibit at the zoo. this very large lush paddock with a great vista of the forest and mountains beyond is shared by giraffe, zebra, ostrich and sable a antelope. hidden moats and boulders separate the white rhino into a small adjacent exhibit and orx have the run of a far distant paddock. BIRD HOUSE - other than a few pinioned waterbirds such as storks, pelicans and flamingos scattered around - this is the only bird exhibit in the whole zoo. unfortunately there is little here other than various hornbills and a few pheasants and some a pair of currassow. BIG CATS - these exhibits weren't bad at all as far as big cat exhibits go. deep water-moated fronts with a low glass wall similar to melbourne's tiger exhibit. and plenty of tall trees and vegetation. notably they claimed to have both lion subspecies as well as sumatran, malayan and bengal tigers. however the sumatran and asian lions were nowhere to be seen. they also had a leopard. MAMMAL KINGDOM - a very malaysian designed series of far too small exhibits where overcaptalisation of concrete prevails and little thought went into actual animal function. here resides bored capybara, malayan procupines, a single prairie dog, various civets and binturongs, pumas, striped hyeana, malayan squirrels, a short clawed otter, plenty of empty exhibits and some no-show mousedeer (both species) and easily the worst conditions i saw at the zoo - for slow loris. here a small aviary housed a single loris, with another two instead kept in tiny rusted cat-carry cages wired to the sides. these poor animals had nothing but food bowls and wire to sit on. atrocious and unacceptable - especially considering identical enclosures sat empty but a few meters away. HOOFSTOCK YARDS - throughout the zoo are various hoofstock yards for mostly asian species. most herds were of big sizes, with a number of mature males and juveniles leading me to believe that breeding was going on a little unchecked. in classic southest asian style - the zoo had zero understanding of the importance of substrate and concrete rubble leftover from construction, rocks and deadfall littered the exhibit. this is a major issue all over malaysia. broken tiles, bricks and concrete rubble is just left on the ground and incorporated into garden beds. while unsightly but harmless in cities, its odd that i so often see rubbish littering animal exhibits. you'd think they would have the foresight to remove it. serow, banteng, guar, chital, sambar, hog deer, camels, llamas, bearded pig, malayan tapir, watusi cattle and other domestics made up this collection. GREAT APES - with around 3 of each - chimps and orangs make up this exhibit. surprisingly, the exhibits are okay. both ape species have sizable enclosures with plenty of very large mature trees in their exhibits surrounded by mural walls and water moats. i was particularly surprised that the orangs did not escape regularly (maybe they do) as the only hotwires stopped them from climbing the upper portions of the trees using vegetation as a bridge to freedom. likewise bamboo stands both in and outside the exhibit provided obvious escape routes. BEARS - a sign outside the brown bear pit read "don't worry about me i'm receiving medical treatment" - i turned to my companion and said "hopefully anti depressants". 7 sunbears, 3 brown bears and a few asiatic blacks share a series of absolutely tiny concrete pits with really obvious escape routes. enough said. PRIMATES - just bigger versions of melbournes baboon exhibits. clean hosed concrete but plenty of ropes, climbing frames and swings. not much enrichment however and a rather boring collection. olive baboons, lar and siamang gibbons, vervets, hanuman and dusky langur, bonnet, stumptail and lion tail macaques make up the collection. HIPPO - what you'd expect of an off display hippo facility. not that big. small pool. okay, but bare minimum. the hippo were however breeding well. evidence suggested they had, or recently had both species, but i only saw common hippo and suspect the pygmies have moved on. PENGUINS/SEALS - it appeared the penguins had all died out as a rather decent glass fronted exhibit now housed some spectacularly large freshwater fish such as pirarucu and giant catfish. the seals seem to only be displayed in the small, crappy seal theater. REPTILE HOUSE & AMPHIBIAN WORLD - upstairs mostly malaysian frogs, downstairs an open-air, rather pathetic collection of a few mostly native reptiles. there was maybe two lizards, a couple of turtles, gharials and a reticulated python. i saw more reptiles in a KL petshop AQUARIUM - the very large expansive aquarium left me sure of the zoo directors passion - fish. this complex just goes on and on as it takes us through a journey of different types of freshwater habitats in malayasia. its as if the aim was to collect a sample of every single fish in the entire country. unfortunately its exceptionally boring. its not unlike walkjing though an oversized version of your local aquarium store, most tanks are the same size, and housing familiar inhabitants. there was a sense that they had bitten off more than they could chew with just too many tanks and not enough time to clean them. some were rather stagnant looking and missing inhabitants. it all left me wondering if anyone other than whoever was responsible found it even remotely interesting. best be converted into a reptile house - but even still its too big. so all in all, whilst there was nothing much that shocked me, this was a rather boring zoo and i wouldn't exactly bother recommending it.
I visited Zoo Negara in 2001 and it sounds as if very little has changed since then - except maybe for the worse. At that time the Reptile House was quite well stocked & included a few unusual Asian species such as 'flying' snakes (Chrysopelea). It's true as you say that "the zoo is virtually absent of any non african or asian animals" but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. The zoo concentrates on the fauna of south-east Asia (with quite a few African species). Isn't that better than trying to do a little bit of everything and keeping species that the zoo's climate is unsuited for? (Thank God they don't have Polar Bears!). There are/were some unusual species exhibited: Southern Serow, Flat-headed Cat, Storm's Stork, Milky Stork, etc. so I don't think you can say that the animal collection is boring.
no but they do have brown bears! quite the contrary i'm all for zoos focusing on local and climatically compatible species. the lure of unusual asian species was what drew me to zoo negara in the first place. my point was - i didn't really find any. most of the asian species on display were common in overseas zoos and since the zoo also lacked much of an international collection i stand by my statement that it was nothing much to write home about. true (bar the flat headed cats which might have moved on). but its all a matter of taste. clouded leopards, rarer langurs, tarsiers, pangolins, malay badgers and the like where more what i was looking for. and my theory is that you can make virually any animal interesting should you give it the right exhibit. this zoo fails on that frontier as well. its not a terrible zoo - but its a VERY mediocre one at best. and to me that made for a rather boring afternoon.
Nice review Phoenix, and it's great to hear about an Asian zoo that is only mediocre and not simply atrocious.
