IN the beginning there was a tiger, three orang utans, six crocodiles and some other animals — this was in 1963 when Zoo Negara officially opened.
The tiger and orang utans belonged to zoo founder, the late Tan Sri V. M. Hutson. Within 18 months, the zoo attracted more than a million visitors.
Managed by the Malaysian Zoological Society (MZS), over the years it expanded and transformed — more animals and other attractions were brought in.
For 15 years, between 1986 and 2001, the zoo brought in some one million visitors annually.
Today, the 44.5ha zoo has over 5,137 specimens from 476 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish. But the record of a million visitors has yet to be breached; the nearest was 708,000 in 2014 when the two giant pandas from China were brought in. Last year, the zoo had slightly over 400,000 visitors.
Why the drop in numbers? It would be sad if there is some link between time expended on social media and the plunging numbers of visitors to the zoo. But, people do go out — they just aren’t interested in zoos.
The argument is that zoos are prisons for animals, and if David Attenborough’s Planet Earth documentaries show animals in their natural habitat, with added drama and story-telling narratives, why the need for zoos?
Zoos have educational merit — this might have been convincing previously, but today it’s an empty mantra. Maintaining Zoo Negara, with all its challenges, has not been easy.
Contrary to what many may think, it is not government owned nor subsidised by it. MZS has been working hard to sustain it, hoping to make it one of the country’s best local attractions.
Perhaps the private sector may want to take more interest in sponsoring animals at the zoo, for upkeep, research and to set up gene banks. Or, the government may want to revive the five-year federal grants it ended in 2004, so that the zoo can expand, bring in more animals and enhance its image.
To become a world standard zoo, there must be the willingness to spend. It is costly, but the knock-on effect would be worth the while. Zoos should not be created on archaic principles of just education; there should be entertainment too.
World-class zoos house a good spread of animals spanning the latitudes and longitudes — from polar bears in the North Pole to penguins of the South Pole.
More than just a zoo, it should be an animal kingdom, a scientific facility for the preservation and conservation of animals.
Take, for example, the London Zoo, the world’s oldest scientific zoo. It receives no state funding, but relies on membership, entrance fee and sponsorship to generate income.
Or the privately run drive-through Safari Park zoo in Bogor, Indonesia with its llamas, giraffes, polar bears, tigers and lions.
Like it or not, zoos are the closest the people can get to know about animals on this earth — the small, the big and the exotic.
“Newborn, new hope” — exclaimed the headline of this newspaper’s cover on Friday. While the birth of three tigers has given new hope to the Malayan tiger, it has also given a boost to Zoo Negara to continue as a facility for recreation, education, conservation and scientific research.