Zoo Negara #6

Back at Savannah; the one section that has the requires alot of strength.

Would say that this section requires the most effort in terms of crude work. The cleaning and the feeding are usually in large sums simply because the animals here are larger in size and bigger in number as well.

Zebras, Ostriches, Oryxs and Giraffes.
These are released into the large area and are allowed to roam around  their enclosure freely. It is only in the evening that they come back to their cages for food and sleep. Cages will be cleaned when they are outside in the morning.

Hippo.
There's one hippo at the edge of the Savannah area and this is also taken care by the Savannah staffs.

Ankoli and cows.
Three enclosures for each species. There's 7, 4 and about 20 in each enclosure. Sick or injured ones were separated from the bunch. We clean the enclosure while the cows are around and then feed whenever its food arrives.

I am probably not doing a very good explanation for this section as I really am that tired..

But there is one question I had to ask and I didn't understand. Why were there so little staffs here? The area is so huge and the keepers here are normally burned out by the time they are done cleaning the cages/enclosures. Other sections had much less work to do but had more keepers on duty, but I feel like this section needed as much help as they can possibly have. I also found out that the bear section is now under the wings of Savannah. Which is worse because they were taking out one man from the already lacking man power here.

I had a talk with a senior keeper here who has been working for more than 30 years in this zoo. He shared his thoughts with me regarding the newer people who come in for work and those who stayed for about ten years and how some that has already left and asked if they could return. The problems that he shared with me got me a little shocked and made me aware of what the real issue was and how it was affecting the welfare of the animals and the keepers here in this zoo. My question is, why couldn't this zoo run like every other zoos in the world?

When visiting Singapore zoo, I could not tell the drastic difference between them and Melbourne Zoo or Australia Zoo. They had well managed facilties and landscape, having both modern and clean feeling of the city feel like another attraction while still maintaining the natural feeling in the enclosures. But in this zoo, you will constantly have visitors complaining about how run down this zoo looks like. How everything looks upgraded and new through the main road from the entrance to the panda exhibition while the smaller sections that requires a little exploring were neglected.

This zoo receives sponsors for their animals too. One example would be the rhinos being sponsored 60 thousand. How much would it take to build a four cell, reinfoced cage thats only made entirely out of cement and metal bars for doors. Food for a year perhaps and an area of enclosure. Is 60 thousand really spent fully on the wellbeing of the 3 rhinoceros in this zoo? I won't know the answer, but I have this question in my head.

I also found out that one of the person of a higher ranked position had no knowledge about animals. And that there was an extra party involved with the money movement of the zoo. I may not have the rights to judge on this, nor do I have the knowledge to comment on this, but I would be curious and be suspicious. Would you not want to know where was your money going?

Almost every animal in Savannah are released into the enclosures. Hold on. There's two oryxes that has long nails. They can't walk properly and the vets were supposed to cut them off. It has been weeks since the oryxes could not walk on its feet and used their front knees to move about instead.

The vets in this zoo were apparently busy attending to the pandas because they were needed to standby for Chinese vets who are about to return home to their mainland.

I am actually angry at how this zoo is treating their animals. The keepers deserves more than they are given now, the animals deserve better treatments.