Zoos make me uneasy, something I suspect they also achieve with some of their inhabitants. That said, the zoo in Singapore strikes me as, on the whole, providing about as good as an environment as animals are likely to get in such a place. They've achieved some successful breeding programmes there, at least, though the animal rides and shows are tacky. But the trainers (the ones who do the shows) do appear to show genuine warmth & care towards the animals Today we took our three nieces (who are staying with us for the next couple of weeks) to spend the day there and a good time was had by all, including the guy with the tender conscience.
The zoo is beautifully landscaped and the signs providing information on the various animals are a model of their kind - accessible to kids and genuinely informative at the same time. There was no shortage of fridge magnets (we bought one with a squirrel on it) and I ate some of Ben & Jerry's delicious & expensive ice cream for the first time in my life.
Star creature of the day: the white rhinoceros, well five of them, in fact. You could smell them from a distance, which was reassuringly wild, and they didn't look at all happy with their keeper, or each other for that matter. A bunch of malcontents of the first order, it was good not to know what they were thinking and whom they were thinking it about.
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