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Published: August 6th 2013
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Today was a zoo day. Seoul Zoo is huge, a whole-day sort of zoo. Unfortunately summer is not the best time to visit because it is not only appallingly hot but it is also the rainy season. When it rains you've got a choice of just getting drenched by the rain or wearing a rain poncho which then acts like a sauna and cooks you from the inside so you end up almost as wet with sweat. There was a huge thunderstorm when I was there which kept everyone under cover for over an hour and turned the roads into torrents of water. South Korea now tops my list of places I've been with the heaviest rain!
I missed quite a chunk of the zoo entirely because it is so big but I saw the most important bits. To give you an idea it took me two hours to just go from the entrance, past the flamingoes, and through the Insectarium, Nocturnal House and Tropical Birds Hall. I took a few photos of the flamingoes near the entrance (Chilean, greater, Caribbean and lesser), moved through the Australian section rather breezily (just your common Australian fare – cassowary, emus, red kangaroos
and wallaroos), and came across the brilliant Insectarium. This is a mix of mounted and live invertebrates, with quite a few local species as well as dozens of tanks of mygalomorphs. Some interesting giant centipedes, scorpions, land crabs and others rounded everything out. I took some photos of a few of the more interesting ones but the tanks weren't much good for photography in general, with condensation and dirty glass.
The Nocturnal Pavilion was the usual mix of average and terrible enclosures. The crested porcupine enclosures were miniscule, but some others weren't too bad. I was hoping there might be some interesting mammals in here but the full species list was (in order of appearance) masked palm civet, slow loris, Egyptian fruit bat, collared scops owl, “hedgehog” (presumably the local Amur hedgehog, but I didn't see it), European eagle owl, tawny owl, Ural owl, brown hawk owl, African crested porcupine, douroucouli, and kinkajou.
It was starting to spit a little now, as I made my way into the Tropical Birds Hall which from the outside really reminded me of the Bronx Zoo's bird house with its cylinder style. There wasn't anything too unusual in here, but it was
nicely down with very tall aviaries (tall enough to be viewed from two different levels).
As I said, just those areas had already taken me two hours to get through, and as I continued on towards the South American Pavilion (where there was supposed to be armadillos, and hence my main reason for going to the zoo) the rain suddenly starting absolutely hammering down, with thunder and lightning and the whole works. I took quick shelter under an overhang by the pheasant aviaries and waited for it to pass. And waited and waited. After half an hour I started thinking it was silly to let rain stop me, and it seemed to be lessening, so I put on my poncho and stepped out, only to find that the paths were completely flooded and within a couple of seconds my trousers were as soaked as if I'd stepped in a knee-deep pond. I found another (better) shelter and waited it out for another half an hour. As soon as it died I headed off, but only got as far as the bird of prey aviaries before the rain returned and I had to take shelter again.
Eventually I made
it to the South American Pavilion. Around the outside are enclosures for guanaco, llama, mara, capybara, Brazilian tapir and giant anteater. Most of these weren't out but the indoor quarters are viewable from inside the pavilion. Fully-indoor enclosures were for coatis, spider and capuchin monkeys, common raccoons, toco toucans and a number of reptiles. These weren't pretty cages, concrete floored and made of steel and welded mesh, but they were certainly tall, probably somewhere between 30 and 40 feet high. Best animals in this Pavilion were giant anteater (looked like two asleep and one active), tamandua (asleep), two-toed sloths (in several enclosures, so I'd guess maybe six or seven), and a six-banded armadillo being very active and photogenic. Albino coypu can also be seen, and South American tree porcupines.
It was getting on in the day, so I skirted quickly past the deer (including Pere David's deer), bison, bears, red panda, and European otter. (I say quickly but it still took some walking). The wolf cages on the map contained coyotes. The Fox Pavilion appeared to be where the wolves and dholes were. I tried to find the North Korean Pavilion but couldn't (it may have been blocked from
foreign visitation...) but I think it was what was holding raccoon dogs, badger, and some more wolves. I also visited the Oriental Pavilion which was an interesting mix of primates and reptiles. And that was pretty much that.
All in all, it is a very good zoo, in the top level of the Asian zoos. You could compare it quite well to western zoos: a mix of good and not so good enclosures, but the worst ones are no worse than the bad ones in western zoos.
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