Most zoos are underwhelming and disappointing. You bake in the heat, walking around a heat-baked, concrete zoo, only to see a handful of animals who look about as miserable and overheated as you do.
The Singapore Zoo is not such a zoo. The animals are actually on display, front and center, feeling close enough for you to touch them.
Unlike all of the zoos I’d been to in the past, there often was little to no barrier between the animals and the zoo patrons. This is as cool as it is terrifying. The animals are right in front of you, not hidden behind glass or cage bars.
The tigers and lions roamed around their enclosures. The elephants sat around, their ears slapping the sides of their bodies.
I felt like a little kid again, thinking about what kind of animal I would be if I had to choose, and always picking one of the more exotic ones, like an elephant, giraffe, or a cheetah.
You could see every type of monkey swinging in its enclosure.
Amusingly, the zoo has monkeys that are not part of the exhibits. Because the zoo backs up to a wooded area, monkeys from the jungle, but not the zoo, hang around.
The people who work at the zoo handle this by shooing away the monkeys with the same energy that New Yorkers shoo away rats or pigeons.
My aunt got into a fight with one such monkey who had gotten hold of a plastic bag that had been left behind by a tourist and my aunt was trying to pry it from its hands. It is hard to convey to a monkey that you are acting in its best interest by not letting it play with a torn plastic bag that it is wrapping around its head.
Overall, we had a fun time going to the zoo. The Singapore Zoo is considered to be one of the more ethical zoos in the world due to its focus on conservation and restoration. All throughout the zoo are signs outlining the status of the animals as endangered animals on the brink of extinction and where they can be found– if they can be found– in the wild.
The Tragic Queen,
Raquel
P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about the Singapore Botanic Garden
The Tragic Queen 