Kobe Zoo » Oji Zoo

Kobe Zoo
05-07-2008

Kobe (Oji park ) zoo is in an urban park with a small funfair attached. They have giant pandas and in 2003 when I went there was quite a lot of panda mania in the city. (This seems to be a big thing in Japan, people love exotic species. The students in my school went to Zoorasia and came back obsessed with okapis and things like sea otters and belugas often feature in cartoons and advertising campaigns).

The pandas have a semi-circular enclosure which isn’t very exciting but is open and fairly well planted and the pandas are often visible and active. The nearby bear enclosures are depressing barred shoe boxes with enormous brown bears in a tiny cage.

Hippos and white rhinos have ok enclosures with a large deep pool for the hippos (but not much room on land) and reasonable and naturalistic landscaping which isn’t that common in Japan. Nearby is a dreary row of pens with single or pairs of deer or antelope (I can’t remember exactly – I think the map says Sitatunga), kangaroos, ostriches and a pen with very high fences for giraffes. Not very attractive.

Asian elephants have a traditional small and old-looking enclosure. There is a round house with sandy glass fronted enclosures for big cats - lions, amur tiger, jaguar, leopard, snow leopard - with rocky backgrounds. Sea lions and polar bears had underwater viewing, the polar bears doing better than the other bears but still a fairly traditional polar bear enclosure.

There’s a museum or science centre which also included king penguins in a white tiled enclosure that wasn’t very inspiring.

I can’t remebr much about the primates but they have gorillas, chimps, orang utans and gibbons. I seem to remember an enclosure for gorillas or chimps which was somewhat like Edinburgh's old chimp enclosure with a similar viewing corridor.

There’s a newer rather twee childrens zoo area which is a bit Disney on a budget where you’ll find squirrels, red pandas, otters and the koala house which is a modern building like a barn with glass fronted enclosures consisting of a sandy floor with branches. There’s an outdoor enclosure too. Some aiviaries dotted around and pens for storks and cranes too.

So in brief, a fairly traditional zoo, compact, not very big, you could see it in half a day, no enclosures which will make you go wow, with all the picture book animals. I also remember pallas cats and giant anteaters.

27-08-2008

A giant panda has been born at the zoo today
YouTube - Baby panda is born(Kobe Oji Zoo)

30-08-2008

Sky news UK have announced that the panda cub has died.

31-08-2008

Oji Zoo » ZooBeat Maps

Oji Zoo » ZooBeat Photo Gallery

01-09-2008

Oji Zoo is now investigating the cause. They say "it might be because the baby couldn't have enough milk, or tampled which are the major causes of death of newborn pandas".
Sad anyways.....

03-09-2008

There is a theory that if the cub had been born with another companion, that the mother would abandon one and look after the stronger one, I'm having trouble getting on to many sites at the moment had this panda given birth before?

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