Zoo Negara #5

Carnivores

Oooh. The days passed so quickly here at the carnivores. Not sure why, but there's a whole lot of chilling here.

Three sections:
Tigers and Lions
Leopards and Seladang
Tapirs and Deers

I guess the hardest work would be the tigers and lions. There's a whipping 13 tigers, 3 white tigers and 4 lions with two lion cubs. The morning starts at 8am, releasing 4 and 2 tigers, 1 white tiger and that loving pair of lions into their separate enclosures. The mother lion stays in cages with her baby cubs as they fear that the babies would not be able to swim and could drown. Once the big cats are moved, their cages get cleaned. Their poo smells horrible! I'd bet it's because of the food they eat, raw meat. The remaining tigers were moved between cages to allow cleaning, no human contact with tigers because well... these big cats will be big cats. Once the cleaning is done, there will be nothing to do up until 4pm where their food will be prepared. The cats gets an average of 6 to 8 kgs of meat per day. They fast on Saturday so that they would be more active on Sunday for the interest of the visitors. It's quite sad I guess. The cages behide are actually really small. They cats are rotated and are given the chance to go out into the enclosure through turns. The cats actually respond to the keepers. When the keepers call them to return to their cages, the cats would listen and walk into their cages. When the cats see the keepers at the front of the enclosure, they would engage with them and would try to chase them.

There's 3 leopards and one black panther. Yes. One of them is really tame, Manja! I was allowed to pat her from outside her cage. She behaves exactly like how a house cat would, waiting to be pampered. :) There isn't much to do here either. Clear the enclosure of leaves, release the cats, scrub their cages, leave. Feeding time is at 4pm. (I swept some bananas from the enclosure, do you suppose they ate bananas? :O but meat will definitely be weighed later for feeding)

Seladang, I the Malaysian water bull. There's only one. Two others had died, so I guess there isn't much to do with this one either. Feeding it with grass and leaves, spraying its enclosure with water.

Deers. There's two types of deers. More than 10 each, couldn't be bothered to count how many there were due to their adorableness. :D They occassionally get knocked up and give birth and their enclosure doesn't have alot of cleaning to do. Their poo are those tiny pellets cause all they eat is grass and leaves. They get fed twice, with bananas, cabbage and some green vegetable (and some honeydew!) for the afternoon feed.

Tapirs. This section only looks after two of the  four tapirs in this zoo. Their poo stinks. I can't figure out why lol. There's nothing much to do for their either, just to feed.

Yesterday was Sunday, the keepers were told to sit outside and watch the visitors. Because there could be cases of silly visitors provoking the animals. Which I happen to see one; he threw rocks at the tigers. The keepers caught him and that idiot said: nono, I didn't do that. I guess thank goodness that they put the keepers up in front and to watch the visitors, otherwise you would never know what kind of stupidity people can come up with which will then harm the animals. Sundays are the days that this zoo gets the most visitors. Shows will run, trams will be full of passengers, any sort of ruckus can happen.

As we sat with the keeper visitor watching, ge shared with us stories about his experiences here in this zoo. There had been tiger cubs born in this zoo. He proceeded talking about the extra hours they have to work whenever there is a birth taking place and more hours needed to be spent keeping an eye on the newborns. Due to the sibling-copulation-birth, there is bound to have some complicants in the cubs. The mother tigers will eat the ones that she didn't seem fit to be taken care of. Once the keepers saw that happening, they would remove the babies from the mothers and raise them on their own. They would stay over in the zoo, making sure to feed the babies every three hours, checking that if they have everything needed for its survival. Which means some of the tigers here are very fond of the keepers. He mentioned that there was one tiger that he used to bring out for walks around the zoo and have photos taken with the visitors. Not sure why did that stop though. I then asked about the lions, and he said thr mothers wouldn't eat the babies, so that was fine.

Another keeper mentioned how he had worked with different sections before working at this section. I asked him, which section did he liked best, he said that it's a difficult one because every section has different experiences. He received a baby giraffe at the savannah section before. He explained how the giraffe babies would fall onto the cement floor and could break it's neck, which was why he was there to catch the falling giraffe baby adding how he got drenched lol.

Yesterday, there was this family I was observing. The daughter who is about 30+ answered her mother's question about whether the tigers can swim. The daughter said that the tigers were afraid of water and it's impossible for tigers to swim. I couldn't stand the fact that she was correcting something that wasn't even true. As the daughter left, I told the mother that this particular tiger actually loves water and it swims occassionally. The mother then asked if I was lying to her. I told her; auntie, I'm working here and I have seen these tigers swim around in the water, why would I lie to you? 

I also returned home to family members having a discussion about how this zoo is lacking and how the people are putting all the collected funds into their own pockets. They also compared this zoo with the zoos in Thailand where it was a safari and what not. They didn't seem interested in listening to what I have to say, felt a little disappointed and just left.

I enjoy my experiences here in this zoo. I don't get paid but I am feeling that these experiences are worth more than what money is worth. I then realised how the general public have different views on animals and it is almost impossible to share thoughts and views with them. They expect entertainment, expect something that will be worth their money spent. Little did they know, the little money they they pay for the entrance fees will all go back to the zoo for maintenance. The amount of food the animals need to eat per day, the amount of water needed for cleaning, the pay for the people who worked their hearts off for the animals. I have not yet met a person who is here for the money, it's all passion and love for the animals. They are fine with the pay. They are happy with their work.

The look on my cousin when she looked at me after I was answering her question regarding my pay for working in this field was disheatening. But you know what makes me happy? Being able to be close to the animals.