We spent most of one day at Jurong Bird Park. This is a large(ish) set of aviaries and free-flying enclosures, plus a theatre area and quite a lot of educational material. It has a genuine research and preservation role as well as providing recreation for Singaporeans and visitors – there are several species in captivity there that are critically endangered in their native habitat. Most of the birds (endangered and otherwise) are Asian and some of the endangered species are actually quite nondescript-looking. But their habitats are under severe threat – it turns out that clearing forests and jungles or draining swamps, even for the best of reasons, results in habitat destruction and species loss.
The park has existed since 1971. When it was created the site was quite some way out of Singapore city, and the current local townships did not then exist. 50 years later Singapore has spread and the Bird Park is surrounded by residential developments on one side and industrial estates on the other. So it’s being relocated, to a site in the middle of the island close to the other wildlife parks (Singapore Zoo, the Night Safari and River Wonders). The relocation was due to have happened in 2020 but of course Covid intervened and work was greatly slowed down. (Possibly, also, Singapore’s desire to do things properly rather than to an arbitrary timetable might have had an impact.) I was hopeful that the move would have happened by the time we went – for a while there were suggestions that it would happen “in the first half of 2022”, but in the event it didn’t. The move is now scheduled for 3 January 2023, which looks arbitrary but is in fact the anniversary of the existing park’s opening date. The new park will be called “Bird Paradise”.
These days the park is only open four days a week (although for the final month or so it will resume seven day opening). It’s a mixture of large aviaries in which birds from various species are exhibited, areas where the relevant birds will stay naturally (e.g. the penguin pool and the flamingo lake), and best of all some huge enclosures that are sealed, i.e. they are covered by very high netting and surrounded by barriers, thus giving the birds a very large area in which to fly freely. These were the best parts of the park, by far – some of the aviaries were very traditional-looking and I’m not sure how good a life the birds in them have. The new Bird Paradise will be much larger than the current park and will feature larger free-flying areas, greater research and conservation facilities, better educational facilities, and where required, e.g. for the birds of prey, better cages/aviaries. I’m sorry that we’ve missed it.
We enjoyed the visit. We were there for over four hours and walked round a significant part of the site. We’re not sure that we saw everything as, while there was an overall circular plan to the park, there were lots of paths that branched off, and we didn’t get down all of them. The best parts were the free-flying enclosures, Waterfall Aviary, Lory Loft and African Treetops. all of these had walkways at various heights, which allowed you get up high into the birds’ environment. In the case of the African Treetops enclosure, many of these were suspended on cables and wobbled a bit… The Lory Loft (Lorys are various species of parrot-like birds, and are very colourful) was exceptionally impressive – flocks of these brightly-coloured birds suddenly taking to the air and whizzing around the enclosure straight past you. The Waterfall Aviary was perhaps less so, but it was very peaceful; and we saw a number of birds there.
We enjoyed the visit, but I’m sure that Bird Paradise, when it opens, will be even more spectacular.
Looks amazing, how good to be able to see the birds “close up” !!!!