Southerners in Singapore: Singapore Zoo

We had a free weekend and decided to visit the Singapore Zoo. This had been on our list of places to visit since we first arrived and we were actually heading there when Ward and Alexa visited us last August but Ella fell en route and broke her ankle and the zoo just never made it back onto our list of things to do until this past weekend.

We couldn't help but compare and contrast this zoo with our own North Carolina Zoo. Whereas the NC Zoo is situated on over 2,000 acres and is the largest walk-through zoo in the world. The Singapore Zoo only encompasses 69 acres (we kept on commenting on the fact that the zoo was almost the same size as the farm back home) yet despite it's small size it includes over 315 different species of animals. The NC Zoo has about 250 different species represented.

The main difference between this zoo and the NC Zoo was the fact that many of these animals are free to roam about the property although many seem to still stay in their spaces. Many of the monkeys for instance weren't enclosed completely leaving you the ability to get very close to them and the ability for them to wander some about the zoo. It was a very cool way to see some of the animals. In other areas though it was very sad - the elephants for instance seemed to have terrible living conditions and thanks to the things we learned about elephants on our trip to Patara in Cambodia, we were able to easily see that the single elephant out in the enclosure was clearly agitated and unhappy. Made us appreciate the wonderful pachyderm exhibit that the F.M. Kirby Foundation helped fund at the NC Zoo.

We had a great time wandering around seeing many different animals. Highlights are shown below. Definitely a fun place to take kids who might come to visit (hint, hint, hint).