Zoos and wildlife centres in Myanmar

[I have locked this thread after moving it to the Myanmar forum. Sebbe67 is an internet hoaxer from Sweden who has never been to Myanmar, so everything in this thread is either imaginary or based on internet blogs of other genuine travellers.
- Chlidonias]

Hello,

I though it was about time to create a seperate thread about the zoos and wildlife centres here in Myanmar and my write about my visits so people may get a better knowledge about the zoos in this country.

I have been living here in Myanmar over 1 year now but I have visited very few zoos or wildlife centres in the country so far, probably becuase the small number but also because I dont like visiting zoos were the animals are kept in appauling conditions, something that sadly is a common thing here, which I largely base on how poorly most "pets" (apart from livestock) is cared for in this country

Unlike close by Thailand were there is plenty of rehabilitation centres and zoos, the number of either of these in Myanmar is very small (should I say luckily?). The lack of rehabiliation centres in the country may be becuase the past and present isolation in this country and the zoo in Yangon is the only relatively large and well known outside the country and therefore also the only zoo that foreign people choose to visit (if they now visit a zoo during their stay in Myanmar that is).

Yangon Zoo Garden

This is the zoo located in Yangon (or Rangoon), the capital of Myanmar. And also being the only zoo in the Yangon area to my knowledge, never heard of any rehab centres or safari parks from this area. I usually take the time to visit Yangon zoo for 1-2 hours every time I have the occasion to drive up to the capital for buisness.

When I first visited the zoo I expected to find alot of animals in neglect and poorly cared for but the zoo showed to be not as bad as reported by many people I had spoke with which had visited the zoo a few years previously. Sure there is still alot that can be improved and especially the encloasers leave much to wish for.

The Yangon zoo is well known for its past breeding succes of Takin, a species they still keeps but with less breeding succes than in the past it seems like at least


The most important species they now keep is with out doubt the Burmese Brown-antlered deer of which the zoo has distributed a very large number to other Asian zoos as well as several zoos in Europe and North America. They always seems to have a large herd present and they seems to be breeding in large numbers in Yangon. They have also released large numbers in the wild over the years. One can say that Yangon has played a very important role, to say to least in saving this species from extinction. Unfortunely the encloaser in the zoo itself leaves much to wish for. Its only consist of rocks and dirt and has since long lost all the vegetation, looks even worse in the rain season when deep mud cover most of the encloaser. Their muntjac and hog deer encloasers is both considerbly better and is both spacy as well as lush and green at least parts of the year.

Other ungulates they keep in the zoo is Southern White rhino, Plain zebra, African savannah Buffalo, sambar, axis and mouse deer.

My favoruite part of the park is the large birdlake in the zoo, were you in the past could rent a small boat and paddle around on your own, but as aggresive pelicans became a problem they apparently stopped renting out boats. Some wild waterbirds being resident in the lake being spot-bellied pelicans (with a few pairs breeding on a island in the middle of the lake in the late 1990s), Grey heron, Great-billed heron, cattle egret, spot-bellied duck and comb duck. Its difficult to know which other of the birds belongs to the zoo but there is often large number of egrets and whistling-ducks present on the lake.

A pair of captive Sarus cranes as well as a single crowned crane is resident around the lake for years, spot-bellied pelicans belonging to the zoo is also present on the lake, as is a few Dalmatian pelicans, mandarin ducks, black swans and night herons (black-crowned and rufous). I have seen a variety of other ornamental ducks in the past but they seems to change often. My bar-headed goose I had before was born in Yangon and I believe they still keep and breed these but i have not seen any.

A few pairs of White-winged wood ducks were occasionally visit the lake in the early 1980s and apparently some of these captured by the zoo as it was mantained in 1985-1988 by the zoo, also these living on the lake. The zoo still mantained it in 2003 but I have not see any all since. A Greater adjutant was brought into the zoo in 1991 but didnt live for more than a few months. The Ardea insignis has also been kept in this zoo in the late 1990s, also that a wild bird that didnt survive for more than a few months.

They have also kept Lesser adjutant wooly-necked stork but somewhat failed with mantaining either, the last Lesser adjutant died sometime in 2006 I believe. The Asian openbill having a semi-wild colony in the grounds of the zoo. I spoke to a keeper in June 2007 and there was some interest in getting storms stork and woolly-necked stork from Indonesia.

The most interesting bird in Yangon zoo being their hornbills, they have had Tickels brown, white-crowned, wrinkled and plain-poached hornbills in the past but i think they have breed few and their populations have died out, the only hornbill of any interest they keeps now is Aceros nipalensis and I believe breeds quite succesfully (mostly to release into the wild).

They keep a large number of common asian species of parrots, galliformes and birds of preys, most of these common in zoos around the globe. Most interesting being their collection of silver pheasants probably (keep 5 different) which they keep in decent encloasers next to each other, make you realize how divserse this species is.

Among the worst part of the zoo is how they keep their herd of Burmese elephants, which are kept in appauling conditions. They are kept chained under a small sun shade during most of the day while being feed with all sorts of things by passing visitors, which means that the only thing they does during the day is standing and begging for food all day, if they are lucky they are allowed to walk a 20min round a few times a day, earlier have the opporunity for kids to ride on the elephants but after some accidents they have stoped with this, the elephants are used in a few shows a few times a week, that remainds of those in circuses.

Most of the primates encloasers is really dated and boring, needs to be updated or the zoo needs to restrict themselfes to fewer species, as it is now they most of their Dusky langurs is kept in mixed groups togehter with Barbes Langurs, which means that probably most of their langurs is hybrids, no conservation value at all in that. The zoo has in the past been breeding eastern holock gibbon but I havent seen any increase in numbers or any infants on any of my visits and their encloaser is also is bad need of a update.

All their bears (asian black ans sun) lives in concrete pitts and they spend the days sitting in their asses and starring at the visitors which happily thrown down all sorts of food to them, they only behaviour I have ever seen the bears doing is sitting and begging for food, except for those already being heavily overweight which spends most of their time sleeping. Their encloasers is really pittiful and have probably not been updated all since the zoo first open.


The zoo has a really huge number (easily over 150) of macaques on display (4-5 species), and most of them show the same behaviour as the bears, spending most of the day sitting by the bars, reaching out their hands and begging for food from the visitors.

They have keept Indochinese Tiger in the past in the zoo, and has also been succesfully in breeding this, for some reason they have choosed to replace them with bengal Tigers of which they have had some succes with, but alot of the cubs has been raised by humans and therefore elemenating any serious attempts to try and release any back into the wild. The tiger encloasers is also very boring, basically a concrete floor and iron bars, some of them is quite spacy and I have not seen any tigers that looks abused or in bad shape but they have noting to stiumulate themselfes with and it looks like they are very bored.

The case is same for their Indian and Indochinese leopards, they are kept in large encloasers and seems to be in good condition but being very under stimulated. They keep a number of smaller cats such as Leopard and clouded leopard.

Other carnivores they keep is otters (2 species), which also spends most of the days begging food for visitors and these are among the most popular animals in the zoo to feed as they have become very good at catching food thrown in, their pools is often very dirty parts of fish and other food thrown isnt cleaned away. They keep a large number of small carnivores such as common, small-toothed, banded and masked palm civets, lesser and greater indian civet, Malay civet, linsang as well as crab-eating and Indian grey mongoose. I have seen Chinese Red Panda here several times but not on my last visits, may just have been moved to a encloaser and that I has missed them.

The zoo keep both Pygmy and Common Hippos and both are kept in similar, boring, encloasers, quite spacy but the pools are poor and it looks like being way to small for the common hippos which has to lay right next to each other if they want to take a bath together, and as they spend most of their time in the pool, if they are not being feed by visitors, a larger one would be very advicable. The floor in the common hippon encloaser is concrete while the one in the pygmy hippo encloaser consist of sand, at least during the short dry season, but the sand is usually washed away during the rain season and then the pygmy hippos has to walk around on a concrete floor aswell.

Their reptile collection is very boring and given the high number of endangered turtles and other reptiles found in the country this group of animals could really be well displayed if there had been a interest to do so, the only reptile (except the siamese crocs which is gone now) of any interest I have seen here is their big-headed turtles, which they luckily breeds quite many of each year. Other is mostly common box turtles, mangrove monitor, hybrid crocs, large pythons (retic, burmese, Indian, blood and short-tailed) as well as a few other snakes

Mammals that has left the collection in the last few years (2003-2007) is Pangolins of which I think they have had both Indian and Sunda, neither seems to have lasted very long. Large-spotted civet, Cougar (I have not seen any for several years now), black leopards (yeah, not a true species but still), jackal, red giant flying squirrel, Bandicoot rat (lesser and greater), plenty other other rodents (keep very few rodents now) and siamese crocodile.

I would give Yangon zoo 4 out of 10.

The most positive is that they run several breeding programmes for species being highly endangered in the wild, such as Rufous-necked hornbill, brown-antlered deer, big-headed turtle and hog deer for reintroduction purpose. And has breed large numbers of Eastern hoolock gibbon, Takin, Indochinese tiger and siamese crocodiles in the past. But still, most of these lives in very boring encloasers in the zoo itself and it would probably be better to create a seperate, more modern, breeding facility for these sepcies, keeping most of them off display would also be good as thefts has been a common occurence in the past.

The zoo should improve the bird lake, phase out all non-native ducks and replace these with native water birds, perhaps lesser adjutant or some asian stork. Move the single remaning crowned crane to some other zoo were others are kept.

Animals such as common hippo, white rhino, african lion, african buffalo axis deer and common palm-civet should be phased out completely so that the zoo can restrict themself to asian species exclusively and restrict themself to species they can care for properly.

The Pygmy hippos should be moved to a zoo that can care for them better, to be honest aim very supprised to find a species like this in a zoo such as Yangon.

The bearspits should have been demolished a long time ago, if there is not financial possible to build new and much better encloasers, move the bears to some bear sanctuary in Thailand or India.

The elephants should be moved out of the zoo to a place which can care for them properly.

Increase the number of primates in the zoo and stop cross bred the langurs, stop breeding the macaques completely and phase out the hoolock gibbons.

Do not allow the visitors to feed ANY of the animals as this is a huge problem and is the reason why so many of the animals shows begging behaviours, which is just idiotic, and sad to watch.

Yangon Zoo Garden Myanmar (Burma)

Here is the website of this zoo.

 

Thank you sebbe, I always find your posts very interesting. You tell us about places that I personally have never been and you inform us both the good and bad aspects.

 

I agree with Ara's statement. I love any kind of zoo review, and it's intriguing to analyze both the pros and the cons of any establishment.

 

Thanks for a very interesting description of this Zoo. Do you know which species of Macaques are exhibited and are there any Assamese Macaques ?(similar to Rhesus but not the same species)- they are extremely rare in European zoos.

 

Thanks ara and snowleopard.

Glad to know its appreciated and i will try and keep this thread as updates as I can.

 

Hello Pertinax,

Last time I was at the zoo (about 3 weeks ago) they had long-tailed, pig-tailed, rhesus and eastern assamese macaque.

They have kept stump-tailed in the past at least but I havent seen any for a long time, and I dont think they ever kept many of these, just 1 encloaser holding 3-4 individuals in May 07, but they were down to a single in September 07 and a group of pig-tails living in the same encloaser in December 07.

The long-tailed and pig-tailed clearly being the 2 most numerous, around 75% of all macaques in the zoo belonging to either of the species.

On my last visit I saw around 14 Assamese macaques (three encloasers) and In saw one infant, I dont know if they brings in wild caught on a regulary basis as the number has varied much over the past year, only 5 kept in 1 encloaser in May 07. I know they have had some ex-change with Vietnamese zoos in the past, possibly Hanoi and others?

 

Apart from the occasionally visits to Yangon Zoo I hadent visited many other zoos in Myanmar until a few weeks ago.


When it was time for me to drive down to Phuket (Thailand) to collect my peacock-pheasants, so early in the morning I pecked my car and started to drive southwards through the country, towards the Thai border, as I was approaching the town Kawthaung (about as far south as you get in Myanmar) I noticed a sign that might mean that there was a zoo somewhere in/around the city (a large board with a tiger, stork (unidentifable), croc and a white-handed gibbon), after having a short talk with a boy selling fruits by the roadside it showed that there was a zoo close by, located some 20 min outside Kawthaung.

Ironically there is no other signs showing the way to the zoo after this large board and it took me over 1 hour to find the zoo, it is located behind a large limestone cliff thatn has started to look more like a garbage dump. I was told that the zoo is owned by a local police cheif and already then suspected what kind of place this zoo may be as the border police isnt well respected in Myanmar (can be bought for nothing)

I arrived in mid-day, the hottest hours of the day, so there was barely any people outside the "zoo", just a old man trying to sell me things he had collected from the garbage dump and some roasted insects, I bought some roasted ants and then walked to the entrence and bought a thicket.

I dont know what the true name of this zoo is but people reffered to it as “Kawthaung mini zoo” or Kawthaung pet zoo”.

To minimize the risk that the would be zoo over crowed you were only allowed to be in the zoo for 40min, then you had to buy another thicket, or being thrown out . I tried to tell the lady selling thickets that the zoo seemed almost empty anyway but she refused to listen and from what I understood from our conversation (my Thai is getting abit rusty) she would call on a guard if I was not back within 40min, unless I bought another thicket.

Just inside the entrence there was a few information boards about the local flora and fauna as well as a bucket containing a poor snakehead that looked close to dead (local fauna?), there was 3-4cm of water and a large branch in the bucket apart from the fish.

There was a short note trying to explain that snakeheads were able to take in air unlike other fishes and that they happily could spend long periods on land without any water, and how they were able to do that.

After the info boards and the snakehead I followed a boardwalk for about 10min without seeing anything, apart from a wild sunbird and alot of flowering plants (local flora?), felt like spoiled time considering I only had about 25min left on the thicket when I had finished walking on the boardwalk.

Just to find myself walking into something that looked like a poor attempt to create a Chinese garden. I started to wonder what kind of weird place I was visiting, I had been in the park for 20min now and the only "zoo animals" I had seen was a snakehead that probably had died since I saw it, I was glad about the sunbird however as it was the first time I saw this species in 2008, and therfore helping me build on my 2008 years bird list.

I meet a few other (indian) tourists in the Chinese garden and according to them it took 25-30min to reach the first animal encloasers if you walked in normal tempo (ftw?), there was a few koi carps and somekind of loach in a pond inside the garden but these at least seemed to have a adequete water level and looked to be healthy, but these may have been becuase there was "special eeding cessions" a dozen times a day. After have walked for nearly 30min I finally approaced a line of encloasers that looked like it could contaning anything other than more fishes.

Totally 6 concrete encloasers that seemed to contain northing apart from food and water buckets as well as a hole in the back wall to which the animals probbaly could retire to avoid the sun or for sleeping, 4 of the encloasers were emtpy and looked like have been uninhabited for quite some time, in one of the occupied encloasers a male long-tailed macaque lived which had lost most of its hair on the back and its arms and also looked live having problem with one of its hands. One of the encloasers seemed to have hold gibbons and another banded leaf monkeys in the past but none present anymore it seemed.

Another lonely long-tailed macaque (female?) inhabited another of the encloasers, it seemed to be in much better shape but looked like it was very bored. After the macaques there was some more buckets, luckily they didnt contained more snakeheads but a variety of amphibians, there was over 15 info boards making me believe they kept as many species but several showed to be empty while almost all remaning contained either a single Fejervarya limnocharis or fry of Fejervarya limnocharis. I also saw a single Bufo melanostictus.

The collection so far seemed to be small, to not say the least boring and poorly cared for. The time for my thicket had since long runned out by now but I really didnt care about it. No security guards in sight either p). I continued to walking and promised myself I wouldent stop by any more of these small buckets. The next row of encloasers really chocked me (or did it?) and made me massively depressed mad:), it was a large number of small, rusty, iron cages with concrete floor contaning about 3-4 tigers each. A hole in the middle looked like it was suppose to contain water for batching purpose. The few "lucky ones" had a few logs in their encloasers, else than then pretty much nothing else.

None contained any water and in several encloasers it looked like the tigers had used them as toilets for years, 2 encloasers had "holes in the back" but there was hardly room for 1 tiger to get into them (i did see several desperate attempts still), there was no shade what so ever in most of the encloasers which meant that the tigers was exposed directly to burning the sun most of the day. Some of the tigers also trying desperately trying to get into some shade often by laying on each other in order to do so, while others was clearly bothered by the sun. The lucky ones still had some water left, didnt saw any signs of any food. Some encloasers looked that they had not been cleaned for a long time

1 of the encloasers was so small that the two tigers living in it almost had to lay in each other, there was no room what so ever to walk around for either of them, they had also spilled out their water bucket. I saw injuries which looked like being after snares and 1 tiger was missing the lower part of one of its legs and another tiger was limping badly. Other had injuries (even fresh ones) showing that the animals fight with each other regulary, most of them were also very thin.

I tried to make contact with several of the animals but they were only laying on the floor and staring into right down into the concrete floor, didnt show even the slighest sign of response. I saw a few kids pocking and hitting a tiger with sticks as well as hitting the bars with the sticks next to the head of the tiger, didnt even respond to that. The kids run off before I got to them, probably the best, dont know if I had ended up hitting them with their own sticks only otherweise. Seemed like many of the tigers had given up the will to keep on long ago, just waiting to die. I estimated that 14-15 tigers were kept in these encloasers alone, of both the Indochinese (9-10) and Malayan (5-6) subspecies.

You were also able to take photographs together with the tiger certain days of the week, as always chained to a rock or platform which smiling tourists or other visitors sitting next to them. Wouldent suprised me if the majority of all tigers showing up at tourist resorts/amusing park in Thailand comes from places like this.

I was when I saw how these animals lived and were being treated, among the most appauling conditions I have ever seen in a zoo.

Next "big suprise" was that the "zoo" sold tiger cub as pets, I asked myself if that could be legal. I dont remember (or care) how much they wanted for a cub but I guess it all depended on how old it was, they decribed them as "cute, sweet and cuddling pets". So what happens when the animal grows up and isnt cute and sweet anymore? they put a bullet in the head or release them in the jungle to starve to death I wonder?

Next to the long row of tiger cages there was a number of smaller encloasers that held a small number of leopard cats as well as a Asian golden cat. These were much better constructed than the tiger encloasers and they had acces to shade as well as water. There was also a encloaser which seemed to have hold otters or fishing cats in the past but was now empty.

After well over an hour in the zoo I had still hardly seen any other people but as I was closing what I thought was the end of the park I suddently found myself surrounded by group of school children. There was a pond by the end of the park but it seemed empy appart from a small group of whistling ducks sleeping at one of the banks, the pond which once may have held storks or water birds was mostly overtaken by water plants and was just another neglected exhibit. There was a few avaries opposite the pond that held local species such as vernal hagning-parrot, long-tailed parakeet, blue-rumped parrot, Bay owl, thick-billed green-pigeon, blue-eared kingfisher and streak-eared bulbul. At the end of the park there was another bounch of avaries holding additional birds such as serpent-eagle, frogmouth, great hornbill and silver pheasant there cages were however small and the eagle was kept in a pittiful cage and seemed to get stressed as soon as someone approached the cage.

The reptile park was located in the far end of the zoo, so was the only resturant in the zoo, a unusual stupid arrangment as you basically had to walk through the entire park. The reptile part remained me more of a crocodile farm rather than a true reptile park.

You walked on a wooden bridge between the different encloasers, it didnt feel very safe as unlike the zoo the reptile park was fairly crowed with people and there was also a resturant in the reptile park serving crocodile as well as other meat dishes
There first large pits hold what looked like typical Siamese-saltwater crossbreeds that is common in croc farms all over south-east asia, varying from 40-50cm up to roughly 4m. There was a single pool holding a single False gharial. Another encloaser had what looked like being a few pure breed saltwater crocs. Most of the remaning encloasers had different species of box turtles or monitors.

The reptile park was boring and basic and it wouldent suprise me if the majority of the animals were butchered for the skin and meat trade. I spend about 3 hours in the park and was very disapointing, and that its a police cheif that owns it is just regretable.
After having talked with some people that looked like being locals I soon relaised that the zoo had been larger in the past, or at least had contained a larger number of animals that I currently did but as the animals died off all the time the park staff didnt and it now seemed like the “zoo” concentrated themselfes to the tigers and the croc factory in the reptile park.

You could say that all other species is being “phased out” and luckily there dont seems to replace any of the primates or any of the smaller cats, I dont know much about the fishes but my guess would be that they will put another miserable snakehead in the same bucket.

I give the zoo 2 out of 10. A completely miserable place and the only animals kept in “ok” conditions is a few of the birds that lives in quite good avaries.

There is also plans to decrease the area currently covered by the park, as most of it is empty few people are interested in walking for a long time without seeing anything (understandable), hopefully placing the car park closer to the remaning animals. I dont know of many other plans that the staff plans to undertake, dont care either as my plans is to help them closing down the place completely.

My visit to this zoo somewhat spoilt my “roadtrip” down to Thailand and on my way back home again I choosed to contact the local authorities in Kawthaung to try and disccus the zoo and the way it is being runned, but it showed out they dont know much about it and have had few complaints before me about the conditions in the zoo.

Since coming back home I have also had contact with the forest department up in Yangon and they have told me that they will try and make a inspection themselves at some point as people like the man running this zoo is very likely to be involved in other criminal activites such as trafficking in drugs, human trading, weapon smuggling and prostitution, aim not to hopefull that they will acctually make a visit to the zoo as I could figure that they couldent care less about the condition in some zoo, this isnt exactly a priority for them. Despite they know that its about time to take some action against alot of the illegal smuggling going on in the southern half of the country. I will still have to try and determinate what actions the authorities in Kawthaung will undertake against the zoo, I have also contacted a few wildlife sancturaries in Thailand to know if they have any knowledge about this place as well as enlight the poor condition that the animals (especially the tigers) are kept in.

For now I will have to wait, hold off and see what happens over the next coming months, if not I will try and make another visit down to the “zoo” and try to convince the authorities in Kawthaung to close down the zoo and move the animals.

 

Here is a few photographs I took of the tigers, you wasent really allowed to take photos of the tigers inside the encloasers, only during the photo cessions when the tigers were taken out so that you could have your photograph taken with them chained on a rock.

 

@sebbe67: thanks for the review of the Thai Zoo, and I wasn't too shocked at the appalling conditions that were rampant throughout the collection. I've seen many photos from Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Phillipino, etc zoos that have been atrocious, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of a Wildlife Act in existence in much of Asia. It's bizarre that the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and Jurong BirdPark are considered as 3 of the better collections of captive animals in the world, and yet there are hundreds of rundown, dirty little zoos in many Asian nations that should never be allowed to continue to exist.

 

Yangon Zoo Garden

This zoo has been emptied on many of its animals the last week or so, and they will be moved to a newly built zoo in Naypyitaw, the new "Myanmar capital", located about 250 miles away from Yangon. How often do you move the capital of a country these days? another smart move by the awesome politicians in this country, "Why not clear a area in the middle of nowwhere and build a new capital". Can only think of how much forest has been destroyed for this purpose, and why they choose to do this after all these years

The reasons why moving most of the animals seems to be that the new capital Naypyitaw must have a zoo, as a matter of pride the capital of Myanmar must host a zoo, but aim after all glad that they have choosen to move animals from Yangon instead of going out in the jungle and caught a large bounch of animals for this new zoo.

I hope that the new zoo will be improved in many ways, said to be 200-300 acres (depending on source) and a "world class zoo" according to the Junta, but for some reason I doubt it.

I dont know how animals which will be moved, the elephants will apparently move and I would figure that the bears, otters and some of the monkeys will come with them as well.

I figure there will be big problems if I attend to visit as well, there is a very strict controll on foreign people, its hard to get in if you are not native Burmese, which isnt that supprising. Tell more about all this when I know more.

I will still keep Yangon as the capital of Myanmar however

 

As it had been a few weeks since my visit at the zoo in Kawthaung I decided that it was time to revisit it, I have not got any good respond from the Forest department in Yangon that has made it clear that they wont do anything about it, not even sending any personal to visit the place.

The local authorities in Kawthaung has however responded more positively and now on my last visit I meet a two guys involved in monitoring human and endangered animal trafficking on the southern islands in the Mergui Archipelago, they promised me to make a visit to the zoo whenever they had the possibility and I will keep in contact with them to see what conclusions they make.

I did visit the zoo on my own and noted several changes since my last visit.

-The snakehead bucket by the entrence was gone and had been replaced by two buckets with a few Fejervarya limnocharis in each
-The coi carps and loaches was present in the Chinese garden and seemed to be doing just fine.
-The ampibian section with As it had been a few weeks since my visit at the zoo in Kawthaung I decided that it was time to revisit it, I have not got any good respond from the Forest department in Yangon that has made it clear that they wont do anything about it, not even sending any personal to visit the place.

The local authorities in Kawthaung has however responded more positively and now on my last visit I meet a two guys involved in monitoring human and endangered animal trafficking on the southern islands in the Mergui Archipelago, they promised me to make a visit to the zoo whenever they had the possibility and I will keep in contact with them to see what conclusions they make.

I did visit the zoo on my own and noted several changes since my last visit.

-The snakehead bucket by the entrence was gone and had been replaced by two buckets with a few Fejervarya limnocharis in each
-The coi carps and loaches was still present in the Chinese garden and seemed to be doing just fine.
-The amphibian section with Fejervarya limnocharis and the toads was gone and the remaning Fejervarya limnocharis had been moved to the entrence.
-The male macaque was gone, the female still present and I was later told that one of the macaques had died.
-Similar number of tigers seen as on my first visit