Night Safari

Next to the Singapore Zoo is the Night Safari. It is full of nocturnal animals that are most active at night. Here you can see tigers and hyenas pacing their enclosures and have enormous fruit bats fly directly over your head.

(More to come shortly.)

The Singapore Zoo offers a unique way to view the animals. They stay open until midnight, so that you can get a look into the lives of the nocturnal behavior. They also offer breakfast with the orangutans, but we elected to go in the evening instead of the morning (much to Erin's chagrin, I like to sleep late).

There are three different options for seeing the animals at night, and we were able to do them all. First, there is a walking trail. There is also a night show where the animals are brought onstage so that the crowd can see some of their behaviors in the spotlight. Finally, there is a tram ride through the zoo, which allows you to see a few more animals than the walk allows.

We went on the walk first, and saw a multitude of animals in the darkness. The path is not very well lit, and it winds its way through a jungle-like area so it really feels like you may accidentally happen upon a critter at any moment. It is really scary to come out of the trees to see one of the animals (like the hyena or the tiger) staring at you because it could hear you coming down the path. They are obviously a confined space, but you can almost feel them watching you in the darkness.

Some of the animals that stood out to Erin and I were the hyenas, the lions, and the elephants.

One of the scariest parts (for no good reason) was the bat cage. The bats on display were vegetarian so they are no danger to humans, but they were at least 3 feet wide when they spread their wings. Also, the bat cage is totally open, so you can walk right up and pet the things (although, this was strongly discouraged). At one point, one of the bats which was right in front of us took flight, and buzzed our heads. The wind gusts created by the beating of its wings was tremendous. I had the willies for about an hour after that. Technically, guests are not supposed to use flash photography during the night safari - which is why we don't have any good photos of the animals - but my flash accidentally got turned on in the bat cage, so we do have a good snapshot of one of the bats.

The staged show was really funny. It was the last show of the night, and the animals were misbehaving. One of the owls flew away into the trees, and for the rest of the show we could hear the zoo keepers whistling to try and coax it back. They also have this trick where they have a snake locked in a box underneath some of the seats, but the snake got away and was actually under some other seats. The people who were sitting there freaked out. As noted above, they don't allow flash photography, so the picture of the snake didn't turn out as well as we would have liked.

The tram ride was a hoot. You actually ride right into the enclosures with some of the animals - obviously the less dangerous ones. But we got to see deer and a cape buffalo. We got to travel very close to one of the asian elephants. It was 29 years old and HUGE!