Last weekend we went to Tama Zoo. There are three zoos in Tokyo, as well as a sea life park (which, like in China, is hugely expensive compared with the zoo entrance fee). We decided on Tama zoo as it looked the most interesting from the Tokyo-zoo website, and it was the closest to us – even closer than we’d first thought, actually, as it only took about half an hour or so to get there. Entrance price to the zoo is 600¥ (about £3.50) but we got a combined ticket for the Tama Monorail which cost 1,000¥ and included the monorail part of our travel there and back. It was fantastic value, and I noticed on the brochure that they offer free entrance to kids under 12, students who live in Tokyo and disabled people.
Tama Zoo is split into different areas – African zone, Australian zone, Asian zone and the Insectarium. We started off at Insectopia – a giant greenhouse shaped like a butterfly that houses locusts and Lepidoptera in their masses. It was a stunning place to begin our outing – that day was a little chilly out and stepping into the warm, humid conservatory was lovely indeed. In the main domed area, there were hundreds of butterflies flying around and weaving in and out of the planted areas. The cavernous enclosure gave them so much space to move around that my photographs can’t do justice to how many butterflies there were in there. Some sat placidly on the flaky paintwork of wooden frames that held up the vines of flowers, while others darted around energetically, teasing the camera as they appeared to pause on a leaf, then soaring off again before I had time to frame the shot. It was truly breath-taking, and made all the more magical as we’d come on a weekend; the room was filled with the sound of children shrieking in delight as papery wings tickled their skin and dazzling colours flickered before their eyes.
We had lunch in the ‘Insect Picnic Area’, surrounded by Japanese families who were consuming onigiri in prodigious quantities. After that, a quick tour of the Insectarium Centre which boasted a glow-worm cave and a series of tunnels stuffed with leaf-cutter ants, busy at work. There was a table in the ‘hands on’ area where you could pick up the insects for a closer look. A rather rotund Japanese boy made firm friends with a giant stick insect – the area was not staffed, and for a moment I thought he would put the insect in his pocket to take home with him.
From our buggy-beginning we proceeded through to the African zone. The crowning feature was the Lion enclosure, where you could pay extra to ride on the ‘lion bus’ and get up close to the animals. We decided against it and enjoyed the view from above. In the middle of the enclosure was a building that was inexplicably decorated to look like the Taj Mahal. The tarmac road that ran around the arena for the lion bus also looked out of place. The lions had a fair amount of space, but they didn’t look particularly happy; perhaps they were just lethargic after their morning meal. Also in the African zone were zebras, giraffes, servals, flamingos, three African elephants, ostriches and a couple of moody cheetahs.
On the way up to the Australian zone, we passed through an area that was populated mainly by different types of birds. There was a deep pit filled with Oriental white storks, an aviary of eagles, and a whole cage of different sorts of owl. Best of all was the Tawny Frogmouth owl - speckled fluff-balls which looked suspicious, quizzical and surprised. I couldn’t get a good picture through the bars of the cage, but here’s one I found on Google.
Main attraction in the Australian zone was the koala house. The koalas were a gift from the Australian government many years ago, and after reading the plaque at the front door explaining the gift, I was expecting a grand enclosure. However, the two koala bears were perched on bare trees, which were the only decoration in an otherwise concrete home. They seemed popular with the Japanese visitors, but the koala house wasn’t one I rated highly. Other animals in the Australian zone: laughing kookaburra, womat, wallaby, wallaroo and kangaroo.
The largest area in the park, as you might imagine, was the Asian zone. There was such a wide variety of animals, and plenty of star acts. One of our favourite things we saw were the snow leopards. They are an endangered species, and it’s rare to see them in the wild. The David Attenborough series Planet Earth showed some of the first ever footage taken of snow leopards in the wild, and that wasn’t until 2006. The Tama Zoo has three snow leopards, two together in one enclosure and one in another. The two together were quite a spectacle. For a while they were just lazing around, eating and drinking from the stream, but every so often they leapt into action with one pouncing on the other in an elaborate play-fight, chasing each other up and down the rock face and tumbling in the grass. Each time they moved the entire crowd gasped and oohed and ahhed. Their tails were magnificently thick, and they had large paws – a trait which helps them to grip in their natural snowy environment.
We passed by the orang-utan enclosure, which includes an ‘Orang-utan Skywalk’ for the creatures to swing overhead between their usual playground and the Orang-utan forest, though I get the feeling that this is seldom used. Certainly no primates went flying through the treetops as we were walking underneath.
Looking at the map, I was baffled by the obscurely named ‘Pere David’s Deer’ and wondered who this Pere David was, given that the nearby picnic area was also named after him. Pere David was a French missionary who worked in China in the 1800’s. He sent examples of the animals to France where the French biologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards named them after Pere David. This species of deer is native to the subtropics of China, and while there are a number in captivity, they have a conservation status of EW (Extinct in the Wild). Efforts have been made to conserve the dwindling population so they can be reintroduced in the wild, but first they had to be reintroduced to China in a captive capacity.
In Neolithic times, the animals ranged all over China proper in large numbers. By the late 19th century, the only herd of Pere David’s Deer in the world belonged to the Emperor of the time, Tongzhi. In 1895, a wall of the Royal Hunting Garden was destroyed in a heavy flood, and most of the animals escaped and were killed by the starving peasants. Then in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the remaining deer were shot and eaten, leaving the Pere David Deer extinct in its native China. The species was saved by Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford. He acquired the few remaining animals from zoos across Europe and nurtured a herd at Woburn Abbey, from which the current world population now stems. As annual population of the captive deer continues to increase, it is hoped that one day the animals may be able to be reintroduced into the wild.
We saw a great number of other creatures in the Asian zone of Tama Zoo, such as the red panda, golden takin, chamois, wild horse, gray wolf, Japanese serow, mouflon, Himalayan tahr, greater one-horned rhinoceros, macaw, brown bear, Japanese giant flying squirrel and Japanese macaque. The macaques were funny creatures, with their bright red faces and bright red behinds they were comical from either end. They sat mostly in groups, grooming and playing together, with fights occasionally breaking out with piercing screams, the bearing of teeth and the defeated party scampering away with a wide-eyed look of fear.
That concludes our trip to the Tama Zoo in Tokyo. A grand day out indeed – I love zoos, and this one rates highly. Some of the enclosures lacked inspiration or didn’t seem very natural, but on the whole I felt that the Tama Zoo was animal-friendly, and the exhibits all seemed quite comfortable. It was a little busy when we visited but not heaving, and it was pleasant to see everyone having such a good time. The next big tourist spot on our list (hopefully) is the Imperial Palace…so until then, Sayonara.
P.S. A photo I took one our way to Japanese class last week – a praying mantis fighting with a worm.
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