Volunteering in Zoo Negara

HELLO THERE. HAPPY YEAR OF HORSE YEEEHAWWWW

This is my second time volunteering in our National Zoo! First time it was during form 5 for Moral project. It was at least like...4 to 5 years back? Gosh I do feel old haha. At that time me and my group mates were in charge of cleaning the zebras and antelope's den (correct me if I named it wrongly). All four dens full of their droppings on the floor. After piling it up it does looks pretty massive hahah. Not to mentioned it was my first time get to stand quite close to a giraffe! It is indeed real tall, really really tall.

There are in total 10 of us turned up for it. Me and another two friends were assigned to do some simple tasks at a few different areas. Well we had to sweep the floor to remove the dry leaves, poop, sticks and feed them. Yeap the tasks are not difficult at all, but if you repeat them for hours it gets pretty tiring. We used the 2 hours break to stroll around the zoo, Feels pretty nostalgic revisiting it after years :) When I was a kid the zoo seems to be really big while now in total less than 2 hours we have visited at least 80% of the zoo. It not the zoo that changed much (obviously) but it's we human ourselves have changed...

Dem birds idk what are they called

Happy feet! But are they happy there?

Fun fact: Initially flamingos are white, the become pink/red/orange because of their diet, coming from carotenoids.

Ok back to the volunteering experience.

There is some upgrading work that is ongoing in the zoo, it is for the relocation of bears if I'm not mistaken. I would say actually the task can be completed faster? While we are cleaning up the workers were just playing with their phone and smoke. Their working attitude..I would say it's not real serious enough, Things can be done within 3 days perhaps they will take up a week? Of course it is not all of them and I DO hope it just a few of them/ they don't behave in such way most of the time. Much more upgrading work still can be done in terms of services and facilities. F&B provided is quite disappointing, not much choices and quite expensive for such quality. Not much tourists, mostly from foreign countries. It's a non-holiday weekdays so I can't expect a good turn up. I can't judge that whether the animals are being ill treated or not, but based on what I observed we still can do better in it. There are patchy spots on some of the animals and definitely very limited spaces to move about. I would highly recommend the Education department to have similar activities for the younger generations(primary school onward), it would be effective in educating them to respect and love the creatures. Overall the staff are helpful and friendly, no unpleasant encounter with any of them. I don't mind to be a volunteer again but provided that they actually prepared task for us beforehand. Like, in a more organised manner. 

Let me outttttt!! He/she kept knocking (gosh I can't find appropriate term for the action) the gate, seems like wanna get out from the den :( poor thing..

Did I mentioned that some of them looked lonely? Especially this monkey, living by himself/herself all alone in a huge cage. When ever it sees tourists it would stand in front of it, staring at the tourists. 

Here a less depressing photo:

Look me and them having the same fringe :D

by the way I got chased by a tapir. Totally freaked me out. Phew luckily the worker came over in time! If not I might be injured pretty badly, staying in ward at this time :/ when cleaning I walked closer to the tapir, thinking it should be tame and I was wrong. Out of sudden it charged towards me! My heart was running wild at that time, being chased after by an animal is not fun at all. At all. The worker told me that its because now is mating season, the males are aggressive. He probably thinks that I want to 'kacau' his girl. Ehh please which part of me looked like I'm attracted to your girl? To begin with I don't look like you at all, I'm quite colorful compared to you-black and white :p

xx