We expect a lot in terms of animals since the beginning of the trip. We were thinking, it’s Africa, we want to see proper animals like the cartoon. However due to the time constraint, we don’t have time to visit to the safari hence we visited to the only zoo and botanical garden in the city – Tsimbazaza Zoo! Apparently it’s the only zoo of its size in Madagascar. I was excited as I haven’t been to a zoo since I was a kid, and I want to see the real lions and zebras! However when I was doing some research about the wildlife in Madagascar, I found these.
Madagascar has an unusual mix of wildlife. For example, the island does not have apes, monkeys, elephants, zebras, giraffes, lions, hyenas, rhinos, antelopes, buffalo, or camels that you might expect to find in Africa, but it does have lemurs, tenrecs, boa constrictors, iguanas, and other creatures. (www.wildmadagascar.org)
I don’t believe in it, and rewatch the cartoon again. Okay, I was wrong again, I was totally mislead by the cartoon. The zebras and lion weren’t there at first, they are suppose to take a long flight to Madagascar.
So I went to check out the zoo, with a foreign tourist fee of 10,000 Ariary (approx USD 5) and we are the only few who visited the zoo on a Monday morning.
We met this cute little boy and his family when we were there. We were surprised that he doesn’t need to attend school on the Monday morning actually but he was so excited over all the animals in the zoo.
Palm trees, coconut trees and unknown species, it seems like tropical jungle where I from. But apparently they are mimicking the natural habitats of all the housed spices. When we walked along the pathways, there’s a lot of endangered spices of animals and plants which we had never seen before. There are some lemurs in exhibits on a lone island, and aye-aye in the cage.
It is an interesting experience as we will never seen these animals before. However it’s really saddened to see these animals kept in the a small closures and under-maintained cages. Although it says they trying to recreate the habitat of the animals but it’s not natural and there’s not much enrichment. There’s not much zoo keepers around hence it can be quite dirty in some cages, with unpleasant odors. As most animals in the zoo is in endangered stage, I hope someone actually improve their living condition and care about those animals.
If zebra, giraffe, lions and hippopotamus were expected in the zoo, fraid not. I saw these instead, they are the only ones in the zoo as well.
Love,
Jo. xx
the wanderlust encounter 