Needs some serious money spent on it. (Dubai Zoo (Dubai, UAE))

Member Name: CokaCola

Product:	Dubai Zoo (Dubai, UAE)
Date:	06/08/09 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A nice collection of animals.

Disadvantages: Poor husbandary, old tatty inadequate enclosures and clearly unknowing keepers.

I love Dubai, have been there several times now, and totally disagree with some of the recent media articles about it falling to pieces in the recession - it remains a country of wealth, success and immense contemporary infrastructure. Dubai has the world's greatest hotels, greatest man made islands, greatest shopping malls but unfortunately, it does not currently have the world's greatest zoo.

Dubai Zoo is located opposite Jumeirah beach park in the Jumeirah area and was originally built in 1967. It sits on a two hectare plot and is the oldest Zoo in the Arabian Peninsula. Dubai Zoo claims to be the first in the Arabian Peninsula to breed the Chimpanzee and the Arabian Wildcat. It opens between 10am and 6pm in summer and 10am and 5:30pm in winter.

The problem with Dubai Zoo is that it doesn't really seem to have a good team of people with any environmental goal working with it and all of the keepers that I have seen working appear to be Migrants from India and Sri Lanka. I remember alerting one keeper to the fact that there was a dead pigeon in one of the aviaries, and he looked at me as if I was some extremely evil character - I expect they probably get some flak from tourists like me because of the seeminlgy poor conditions that the animals are forced to live in.

The animal collection on paper is very nice, with everything from bears, tigers, cheetah, giraffe, crocodiles, chimps, a large bird collection, a reptile house etc. I'll cover my problems with some of the above areas within the Zoo in turn.

Big Cats - Dubai Zoo really does not keep it's big cats well, and although I forget exactly what the have and I want to refrain from publishing false information, they definately have tigers an cheetah to name two examples. The cats are kept in small concrete rooms with prison cell bars on the front and the enclosures seem dark, hard and totally void of all enrichment - completely the opposite to how big cats are conventionally housed in zoological facilities. My suggestion is that Dubai Zoo seriously needs to move to a new site so that it can provide it's big cats with outdoor, spacious enclosures where they are given the opportunity to exhibit natural behaviour.

Birds - As you enter Dubai Zoo, quite close to the entrance there is a block of aviaries which contain various parrot species. There is an aviary containing macaws, an aviary containing african grey parrots and various other aviaries. The main problem with these aviaries is that they are stocked far too densely, the perches are literally crawling with the birds, they are at the front of the aviary on the mesh - too many parrots in a small space. The enclosures at only mesh on the front and this makes them dark inside, and they also have been quite dirty on the various occasions I have visited. The Zoo also has larger wetland aviaries, but unfortunately these are also dirty, in need of repair, too densely stocked and contain birds which are totally unsuitable for this type of system, like fancy pigeons.

Dubai Zoo also has a reptile house. Again, the enclosures are dirty, there are often multiple snakes of different species housed together which from a herpetological point of view is not the best of ideas and the house displays mainly large constrictors which are housed on pretty much bare concrete. Snakes do not need as much stimulation as some of the other animals, but with dirty pools and lots of old shed skin - the reptile house too is in serious need of refurbishment.

The bottom line is that Dubai Zoo is too small for the animals it contains, and needs some serious cash spent on it if it wishes to become a world class zoological faciltity. The main problem with it at present is that it has no conservation purpose, or at least it certainly doesn't feel like it does - it feels more like a tourist attraction, with the animals there to draw in tourists and get them to pay the entrance fee, and buy ice cream and snacks whilst inside. There were plans for a 55.6 million dollar new zoo to be built at Dubailand, but unfortunately these plans are on hold indefinately.

Dubai Zoo has a long way to go.

Summary: C'mon Dubai, this Zoo should be at the top of your priority list.