For our 1st two weeks in Malaysia our volunteer placement, organised through Way Out Experiences (http://wayoutexperiences.com/about.html) has been at Taiping Zoo. It's the oldest public zoo in the country, run by the local municipality. Founded 80 years ago, it has more than 1300 animals, representing 200 species of birds, reptiles & mammals occupying 24 acres of the Lake Park.
As zoos go, it is one of the pleasantest that we've ever seen, set as it is in such a lush landscape. The zoo's director is Dr Kevin Lazarus, a vet by training. He & all his staff were warm & welcoming. We were introduced to them by Aida Ghani, a lovely young Muslim Malaysian who looked after us uncomplainingly & cheerfully throughout our stay. She ensured that we knew where to be & what to do! She ensured that we had all the necessary equipment for the tasks in hand - rakes, brushes, bin bags, boards, ropes, disinfectant, palm leaves, plasters, keys, food & wellies! She worked tirelessly alongside us as we raked , swept, cleaned & sweated. She warned us about the leeches - not that it helped us to avoid their attentions! It wasn't so awful, though - entirely painless if messy. We weren't aware of having been bitten until we noticed our clothes seeping blood!
We worked mainly around the area of the orang utan enclosure, but we also had the opportunity of coming into close contact with lions, tigers, black panthers, gibbons, tamarins, bearded pigs, otters, storks, leopard cats, elephants, civets, chimpanzees & a lemur. We spent a lot of time with a young female orang utan named Wasabi who is 4 years old. Sadly, her mother had not known how to look after her. She has had to be raised in isolation by the keepers although they are hopeful that she will be able to be introduced into the company of the zoo's 3 adult orang utans when she is 6 years old. In the meantime, she is reliant on the company of humans to enrich her life (enrichment seems to be the buzz word in zoo circles). We played with her, hid her food to encourage foraging & provided treats like sugar cane, raisins (hidden in Howard's pockets) & palm leaves to be chewed & fashioned into a nest. She was charming, intelligent & occasionally petulant, capable of throwing some fine toddler tantrums! Orang utans share 98% of their DNA with humans & we certainly were profoundly aware of how striking the similarities in their behaviour are.
The animals that filled us with the most awe, as they had in Africa, were the big cats. We found the lions, the panthers &, in particular, the tigers just amazing. Their power & ferocity are endlessly fascinating & terrifying.
We do have a slight unease about zoos. Obviously, the ideal place for wildlife is in the wild, but for most of the animals in Taipeng Zoo there would be no hope of survival without the security of the zoo and the care of the keepers. Two of the orang utans came to the zoo because they were in private hands & became too powerful to look after. A male adult is ten times as strong as a human. They are an extremely endangered species and it is not unlikely that, if the deforestation in this part of the world is not halted, then they will be extinct in the wild within 10 years.
As for the big cats, there are more lions in USA zoos than there are in the wild in Africa. Tigers are being constantly hunted and killed for their skins and also for their bones to be ground up for Chinese medicines. The big cats are even being killed for their meat. We read a story in the newspaper here that smugglers escaped being caught, as they tried to take a black panther into Thailand for exotic meat eaters.
The debate amounts to whether it's better to preserve the animals in captivity - or lose them altogether. We are on the side of the zoos as long as conditions are available to make the animals as comfortable as possible.
As zoos go, it is one of the pleasantest that we've ever seen, set as it is in such a lush landscape. The zoo's director is Dr Kevin Lazarus, a vet by training. He & all his staff were warm & welcoming. We were introduced to them by Aida Ghani, a lovely young Muslim Malaysian who looked after us uncomplainingly & cheerfully throughout our stay. She ensured that we knew where to be & what to do! She ensured that we had all the necessary equipment for the tasks in hand - rakes, brushes, bin bags, boards, ropes, disinfectant, palm leaves, plasters, keys, food & wellies! She worked tirelessly alongside us as we raked , swept, cleaned & sweated. She warned us about the leeches - not that it helped us to avoid their attentions! It wasn't so awful, though - entirely painless if messy. We weren't aware of having been bitten until we noticed our clothes seeping blood!
We worked mainly around the area of the orang utan enclosure, but we also had the opportunity of coming into close contact with lions, tigers, black panthers, gibbons, tamarins, bearded pigs, otters, storks, leopard cats, elephants, civets, chimpanzees & a lemur. We spent a lot of time with a young female orang utan named Wasabi who is 4 years old. Sadly, her mother had not known how to look after her. She has had to be raised in isolation by the keepers although they are hopeful that she will be able to be introduced into the company of the zoo's 3 adult orang utans when she is 6 years old. In the meantime, she is reliant on the company of humans to enrich her life (enrichment seems to be the buzz word in zoo circles). We played with her, hid her food to encourage foraging & provided treats like sugar cane, raisins (hidden in Howard's pockets) & palm leaves to be chewed & fashioned into a nest. She was charming, intelligent & occasionally petulant, capable of throwing some fine toddler tantrums! Orang utans share 98% of their DNA with humans & we certainly were profoundly aware of how striking the similarities in their behaviour are.
The animals that filled us with the most awe, as they had in Africa, were the big cats. We found the lions, the panthers &, in particular, the tigers just amazing. Their power & ferocity are endlessly fascinating & terrifying.
We do have a slight unease about zoos. Obviously, the ideal place for wildlife is in the wild, but for most of the animals in Taipeng Zoo there would be no hope of survival without the security of the zoo and the care of the keepers. Two of the orang utans came to the zoo because they were in private hands & became too powerful to look after. A male adult is ten times as strong as a human. They are an extremely endangered species and it is not unlikely that, if the deforestation in this part of the world is not halted, then they will be extinct in the wild within 10 years.
As for the big cats, there are more lions in USA zoos than there are in the wild in Africa. Tigers are being constantly hunted and killed for their skins and also for their bones to be ground up for Chinese medicines. The big cats are even being killed for their meat. We read a story in the newspaper here that smugglers escaped being caught, as they tried to take a black panther into Thailand for exotic meat eaters.
The debate amounts to whether it's better to preserve the animals in captivity - or lose them altogether. We are on the side of the zoos as long as conditions are available to make the animals as comfortable as possible.
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