Yangon Zoo

One afternoon when Julie and Ken (our guests from Belgium) were here we decided to visit Yangon Zoological Garden. Since it is located close by Kandawgyi lake, again 15-20 min walk form our place, it was very convenient for us to go there.

To get to the zoo we had to pay 2 000 kyat per person. Again a foreigner price.

THAT ticket... 

Once we got to the zoo we could see immediately that it was once a very nice zoo, but now it was so purely maintained... Pavement was broken in many places, cages looked very old. 

'Zoo' gang: Ruben, Julie and Ken (from left to right).

The first animals we saw were different exotic birds which names I don't remember besides peacock :) Birds looked quite fine and even happy, despite the fact that rats were also feeding from their food. Yes, the peacock was (happily?) sharing his plate with a fat hairy rat.

Afterwards we saw monkeys. There were not many of them, but they were big and pretty nice. Once they saw us, they immediately started posing and bagging for food.

This one came straight to the fence and started wash himself and posing to the cameras. 

This one was kind of a 'yoga master' - doing all sorts of stretching exercises 

We went further. It seemed that third of all the animals in the zoo were ungulates: different roes, horses, deer etc. You could buy some bananas to feed them. Actually it was the first zoo I've been to where it was allowed to feed animals.

Some zoo visitors bought banana and were feeding animals. 

Now I understand why it's not allowed: it is not only that animals can get sick or poisoned, but they start begging for food. Which almost all animals in this zoo were doing. Apparently they either don't get enough food or they are so used to beg that it became an instinct for them.

Another interesting animal was the fishing cat. There were few cages with that species of cats. One of the animals looked like a real psycho: he was nervously walking from one side of the cage to another making weird sounds. Two other of his mates looked scared and were quietly sitting.

Fishing cat. Some of them were really big, others much smaller. Maybe male and female differentiate in sizes. 

I could not believe my eyes when I saw the elephants: there were 5 elephants, chained with their feet to the floor, on a very small space. How could those people treat poor elephants like that while other animals had quite a lot of space?

Nevertheless elephants enjoy their lives and care for each other. 

You could take an elephant ride in the zoo.

Elephants were also begging for food and many people were buying sugar cane sticks to feed them. I felt great pity for them...

But not until I saw the bears. There were 2 small bears, probably still babies, with who visitors could take pictures. Both bears were chained to benches with a very short chain. Basically those bears couldn't even walk properly! When one of them started crying, I just couldn't stay there anymore - it felt like the baby was crying! Although it seemed that only me and my friends were pitying the animals - neither bear trainers nor any other visitors seemed to care...

Somehow there were so many hypos in this zoo. Apparently when the zoo in Nay Pyi Taw (the current capital) took the biggest collection of animals from Yangon zoo, they decided to keep all hypos here. Well, at least those hypos had a lot of space and they looked OK.

This hypo was the fattest since he was the closest to the banana selling stall. 

The otters were next to the hypos and didn't look OK at all. Once they saw us coming, they got out of the water and started loudly squeaking - this is they way they were begging for food. Poor little otters...

The next was monkey island so to say. The pictures speak for themselves. Monkeys looked healthy and active. So hopefully they get enough food.

Monkey island

Lazy one

This adventurous monkey tried to escape from the island :) 

Then there were lions and tigers, whose pictures I don't even want to show since they were so skinny... The animals didn't even get up when we came to their cages. I just hope that it's their normal behavior and not because of hunger and illness.

One of the inhabitants of the wild cats compartment :) 

I left the zoo with mixed feelings. I was so sorry for those poor animals who didn't have enough care. After being in nice zoos in Europe, where all animals look healthy, I felt like crying for all those in Yangon Zoo who were starving and sick. I really hope that since the country is developing so far the zoo will evolve as well getting some corporate sponsors and donors.