Mohamad Al-Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve

After visiting the camels and trying again to visit the oryx farm, we learned about the nearby Mohamad Al-Dosari Zoo and Game Reserve which they promised us had some oryx!

They were right!

There were so many animals as well including zebra, camels, ostriches, foxes, dogs, goats, and even elands!  (An eland is apparently a type of antelope from Africa.)

eland

The farm is located just north of the camel races.  Map below:

View Mohammed Ad-Dosari Farm in a larger map

Singapore: Zoo

Next we went to the Singapore Zoo.  The three parks have a deal where if you buy tickets for all three, the zoo, the night safari, and the bird park, then you get a huge discount.  Unfortunately we didn't do this since we didn't know what we would have time for and were kind of winging the whole drip and figuring things out at the last minute.  A certain culture is definitely getting the best of us...

The zoo was very similar to the night safari in that it was very hard to see moats or fences showing that the animals were caged.  Instead, everything was very open with loads of trees and natural settings that it made it hard to find the animals often and we couldn't always see them even if we looked and looked.

There were a lot of cute animals that I hadn't seen before, like these guys.

Overall, definitely an amazing park trio and worth it to see all of them!

Singapore: Night Safari

After dinner, we went with S to the Night Safari! This is one of Singapore's signature tourist attractions. We saw a night show, road a train around to see the nocturnal animals active at night, and also could walk around to some of the close animals. The whole place was designed like a forest and it was hard to find fences marking that the animals were caged.  It was truly amazing but hard to take photos of.

This was the Creatures of the Night Show where they had this cute little guy showing us how to recycle! Singapore is really amazing with education for the environment and really is organized with everything in general. Truly an amazing country city that is doing things right.

Unlike traditional nocturnal houses, which reverse the day-night cycle of animals so they will be active by day, the Night Safari is an entire open-air zoo set in a humid tropical forest that is only open at night. It is divided into eight geographical zones, which can be explored either on foot via three walking trails, or by tram. The animals of the Night Safari, ranging from Indian rhinoceros to tarsiers, are made visible by lighting that resembles moonlight. Although it is brighter than full moonlight by a few orders of magnitude, it is dim enough not to disturb nocturnal and crepuscular animals' behaviour. London based lighting designer Simon Corder created the lighting for Night Safari. Exhibits in the safari come from South America and other parts of Asia. The naturalistic enclosures simulate the animals' native habitat. Animals are separated from visitors with natural barriers, rather than caged, similar to the Singapore Zoo's open concept. Instead of vertical prison-like cages, cattle grids were laid all over the park to prevent hoofed animals from moving one habitat to another. These are grille-like metal sheets with gaps wide enough for animals' legs to go through. Moats were designed to look like streams and rivers to enable fishing cats and servals to be put on show in open areas, and hot wires were designed to look like twigs to keep animals away from the boundaries of their enclosures.

Singapore: Jurong Bird Park

Jurong Bird Park is the largest and one of the finest bird parks in the world. The 20.2 hectare open-concept park has a collection of more than 8,000 birds from 600 species. Visiting the park is both entertaining and educational, and is enjoyable for the whole family. With key attractions such as the Bird Discovery Centre, African Waterfall Aviary, Lory Loft Aviary, Southeast Asian Birds Aviary and the award-winning African Wetlands, the Bird Park attract nearly a million visitors a year.

It was possible to walk inside the cage with these blue birds and they would come right up to you.  No one touched them, even the children.  Somehow I don't think this system would work so well in Doha.

It was possible to feed these guys.  They were certainly excited by the food and even bit me!

 

Overall, the Jurong Bird Park had a lot of interesting birds and was definitely worth visiting.