Zoomania (BusinessWorld)

published in the November 9 , 2012 issue of BusinessWorld. Click here for the original article.

Focus

Posted on 06:03 PM, November 08, 2012
Text and Photos by Jennee Grace U. Rubrico

Zoomania

Under artificial lighting that approximates the gleam of the moon, lions roar, tigers swim in a pool inside their enclosure, and owls stare hard from inside their cage. The animals that are awake are on hunt mode, but content themselves with feeding on prey that’s served dead.

OTTERS interact with the visitors of the zoo

It is 8.30 p.m. at the Taiping Night Safari, and while the day walkers sleep in their darkened cages, the nocturnal mammals, reptiles, and birds lose the lethargy that weighs them down at daytime. They now have full use of their faculties, and in the limited space that they have, are raring to get the night going.
Sitting on a 14-hectare piece of land in the heart of Taiping’s Lake Gardens, the Zoo Taiping & Night Safari is noteworthy in a number of ways. The 51-year-old zoo is the oldest in Malaysia, having hosted fauna since 1961. It is also the only night safari in peninsular Malaysia, and is a breeding center for some of the world’s endangered animals. The animal park has also put the sleepy town of Taiping, in the state of Perak, on the country’s tourism map.

A baby elephant bred at the conservation center
 walks with adults in their enclosure

Every year, 700,000 visitors go to the town north of Kuala Lumpur to visit the animal park, Hanim Ramly, the head of Taiping’s Tourism, Education and Publicity Division, said in an interview.
The visitors are mostly students from all over Malaysia who take school trips to the town, roughly three hours away from the capital, to learn more about the 200 species and 1,300 animals it hosts.
The zoo opens at 8.30 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. It reopens as a night safari from 8 to 11 p.m. On holidays and Saturdays, opening hours extend up to midnight.
Visitors can go to the park during the day then come back in the evening to see how the animals, a sizable number of which are nocturnal, change under the veil of darkness.
At night, they remain in their enclosures, so visitors can safely navigate around the property. It gets a little disconcerting when you know that vicious animals such as crocodiles, hippopotamuses and panthers -- not to mention snakes -- lurk somewhere in the area, and the only sources of light are the soft glow of bulbs that are installed in certain enclosures to mimic moonlight.
But, Dina, a zoo ranger and our guide for the trip, says there has not been, to her knowledge, any untoward incident at the zoo involving guests.

Malayan tigers frolic in the water

Operating mainly through revenues generated by ticket sales, the nature park nevertheless avoids money-generating gimmicks like animal shows. But if they are lucky, visitors may see the beasts being given food during feeding time. Guests can go around on foot, or by taking the trams that the zoo provides for both day- and night-time operations.
Meeting guests immediately after they pass the turnstile are some of the smallest and rarest monkeys in the world. Among the residents are the endangered golden-handed tamarin, the saddleback tamarin, and the pygmy marmoset, said to be the smallest monkey in the world. The slow loris, which moves at the same pace as someone suffering from arthritis, is also housed in the complex.
Their bigger counterparts, the old world monkeys, are housed in a different section of the zoo, where they have enough space to swing around.
"The difference between the old world monkeys such as the chimpanzees and the orangutans, and the new world monkeys, besides their size, is their tails. Old world monkeys do not use their tails for swinging or holding things," Dina says.
Primate lovers would have to come during daytime because at night, the apes sleep.
Fans of otters will delight in the park’s naturally adorable residents. They are bubbly, with bright eyes that follow visitors’ movements even as they also move around in their glass enclosures to ask for food. And they seem to be awake both during the day and at night.

Scarlet ibis and flamingo share an enclosure

Cat lovers, meanwhile, have a lot to see with the zoo’s sizable collection of felines, which range from the small cats to their great kin. In the park are several civet species, the medium-sized Asiatic Golden cat, panthers, lions and tigers.
Dina reveals that the zoo has successfully bred Malayan tigers, which are on the endangered species list. On its web site, the San Diego Zoo also mentions Zoo Taiping & Night Safari as one of the conservation centers for Malayan tigers.
The zoo has also successfully bred elephants, monkeys, deer and night herons. When other zoological parks in the world need any of the creatures that Taiping has too many of, an animal swap usually happens, Dina says.
The park boasts a good mix of endemic and exotic fauna. Besides the Malayan tiger, the endemic animals include the Asian elephant, Malayan sun bear, wild boar, bearded pig, tapir, and gaur, which is Perak’s state symbol.
Among the exotic species are the arapaima, the world’s biggest scaled freshwater fish, which are endemic to the Amazon river basin. The vicious fish, which look like overgrown arowana, eat smaller animals. They can grow up to 11 feet, are considered to be living fossils for not having changed over the past 13 million years, and are on the endangered species list due to overfishing and loss of habitat.
Also in the zoo are the scarlet ibis -- bright red wading birds which are also endemic to South America. Wallabies, cassowary and ostriches from Australia, as well as deer, zebras and giraffes from Africa are also residents.

Wild boars take a nap during the day

The center tries to provide an environment that takes the animals’ welfare into account. Flash photography, for instance, is not allowed. While this would make taking pictures at night difficult, it also reduces the stress the animals are subjected to.
Young males are also separated from the alpha male when they become a threat, in apparent deference to the laws of the jungle. And in the case of lions, Dina says they take turns in taking the viewing platform.
"We try to keep the setting as close as possible to the animals’ natural habitat," Dina says, noting that the park tries to operate as an open-concept zoo.
Just how close an approximation to the animals’ natural habitat is it? Enough for them to keep their instincts, it seems.
"A baby monkey fell from the tree above the arapaima pond," Dina recounts. "It was eaten by the fish."

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Zoo Taiping charges an entrance fee of RM12 per person while the Night Safari charges RM16 per person. Taiping can be reached by bus, train or car. Visitors who drop off the bus or railway station can take a taxicab to the animal park.