Visit Singapore Zoo: February 2009

Friday, February 27, 2009

Join NTUC - Good Deals



NTUC Members' Promotion
Jurong BirdPark, Night Safari and Singapore Zoo
NTUC U card promotion:-
- 30% off Jurong BirdPark, Night Safari, Singapore Zoo admission
- While stocks last
- Exclusive to NTUC members only
- Present NTUC member card upon purchase at
NTUC Customer Service Centre
- Limited to 5 admission tickets per card
- Not inclusive of tram ride
- Non exchangable for cash or other goods and services
- Only available at NTUC Customer Service Centre, One Marina Boulevard, #B1-01

Singapore Zoo – The World’s Best Rainforest Zoo
Singapore Zoo is known to have among the most beautiful settings in the world, where 2,530 animals roam freely in open, natural habitats covering 28 hectares.

The most recognised resident is the orang utan, and Jungle Breakfast with Wildlife is a unique encounter where diners experience first hand the wonder of being so close to these wonderful creatures.
Themed exhibits such as Fragile Forest, Hamadryas Baboons – the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia and Elephants of Asia, and interactive edu-taining animal presentations will enthrall all to learn about and appreciate wildlife.

What’s more, splashes of exhilarating activities await at Rainforest Kidzworld. Get set for waves of fun at the water play, zip along on a cableway or help groom our miniature horses! To end your day, take a quick cruise on our boat to enjoy a scenic view of the Upper Seletar Reservoir.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Sumatran tigers kills, whose fault is it? HUmans?

A STRING of attacks by rare Sumatran tigers has left six people dead in Indonesia in less than a month, including three mauled by the critically endangered cats this weekend, conservationists said on Monday.

A father and son - illegal loggers sleeping near a pile of wood - were killed as they slept Saturday in protected forest on Sumatra island. Another man in the same area was attacked just after dusk Sunday, said Didy Wurdjanto of the state conservation agency.

The other victims were killed in late January, also in Sungai Gelam, a district 600km from the capital, Jakarta, but those tiger attacks all occurred near to villages.

The Sumatran tiger is the world's most critically endangered tiger subspecies.

Only about 250 of the cats are left in the wild, the Forestry Ministry said, compared to about 1,000 in the 1970s. The tigers' diminishing population is largely blamed on poaching and the destruction of their forest habitat for palm oil and wood pulp plantations.

In some cases the animals roam into villages or plantations in search of food, setting the stage for a conflict with humans.

Rangers and conservationists were rushing to the scene of the latest attacks to investigate.

But since the animal - or animals - had not strayed from its habitat no efforts would be made to catch and relocate the cat, said Wurdjanto.

'This time it was the loggers' fault,' he said, adding that the tigress believed responsible for last month's maulings has been captured and is being taken to a national park.

About 40 people have been killed by tigers on Sumatra between 2000-2004, according to the state conservation agency, which said the trend has continued since then. New figures will be released in April. -- AP

Friday, February 20, 2009

CopyCat Zoo Malaysia!

Is selling the singapore brand 'nation brand perception' a way to go? Teaching others, sharing experiences, consultation, Providing the Singapore Solution. Knowledge sharing, but is Singapore selling himself out? In the long run what will be our uniqueness and sell point.

M'sian zoo to follow S'pore's open concept
Mon, Feb 16, 2009
The New Straits Times
By Sean Augustin and Nurul Mardiana Abdul Alim

KEMAMAN, TERENGGANU: There are great expectations of the Kemaman zoo, touted to be the largest on the east coast, which is due to open by the end of next month.

Located on a 54-ha site in Bukit Takal, bordering the popular firefly colony in Kampung Yak Yah, it will house animals of about 100 species, including bears, seladang (Malayan gaur), kijang (barking deer), wild goats, orang- utan, crocodiles and tigers.

These animals are among the 100 species to be featured at the new zoo in Bukit Takal, Kemaman, which is due to open at the end of next month. [NST pictures by Aswadi Alias]

Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents Terengganu Chapter Committee member and tour operator Alex Lee said the opening of the zoo would bode well for the tourism industry here.

This is because it will help shift the focus of the industry to Kemaman since most of the popular sites in the state are located up north, he added.

"I hope the zoo will also serve as a rehabilitation and conservation centre. This will attract more visitors."

Lee hoped there would be efficient management and promotion of the place. He also hoped it would have an open zoo concept like in Singapore as tourists tend to skip zoos that caged up animals.

Malaysian Nature Society Terengganu chairman Wan Adnan Ismail said he also preferred the open zoo concept.

He hoped the zoo would be popular for being a well-managed animal kingdom instead of being the biggest.

"It has to be attractive. We don't want people leaving the zoo feeling sorry for the animals."

Restaurant operator, Latifah Mohd Razi, hopes the zoo will help boost business here with the high number of tourists expected.

Nazariah Mustafa, 33, who operates a sundry shop in Jalan Saga, said: "I hope the infrastructure, especially the road, will also be upgraded."

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Animals' Rights

Love them!

NTU Animal Lovers’ Society is a society run by matriculated students of NTU and students of National Institute of Education who are animal lovers. It was started off by Miss Fong Kam Ling in April 2007. With the help from some other passionate animal lovers, the club is officially approved by NTU Student Affairs Office in July 2007.

The objective of the club is as following:

Providing educational resources and fun to all animal lovers and disseminating information to promote the knowledge and interest of animals.
To raise awareness of animal’s rights and protection, as well as to save and improve lives of animals.
As we believe that spreading love and care for animals should be through joint efforts with other organizations, NTU Animal Lovers’ Society also works with official institutions and other non-governmental organizations.

Some of the activities which we will be organizing include the animal adoption project, voluntary work at animal shelters, field outings and expeditions and organizing animal carnival in NTU, such as Animal Rights Awareness week.

Main Committee Members
President: Elaine Lee Xiao Yin
Email: elxyin@hotmail.com

Vice President: How Bi Ee
Email: fireworks_bi@hotmail.com

Honorary General Secretary: Terence Woon
Email: neomaverickx@hotmail.com

Honorary Treasurer: Saw Vee-Liem
Email: veefessional@hotmail.com

Animal Welfare Officer: Valerie Cheah
Email: angel_bluez16@hotmail.com

Event Managers: Yeow Wan Ching & Jamie Chia
Email: snoopyger88@hotmail.com &a1_rocks@hotmail.com

Business Manager: Lim Sitong
Email: lim.sitong@gmail.com

Logistics Officer: Low Kar Perng
Email: cutekidlowkp@hotmail.com

Publicity & Publication Officer: Nguyen Truong Tho
Email: thont@live.com

External Liaison Officer: Goh Beng Kim
Email: beng_kim86@hotmail.com

Friday, February 13, 2009

Millions of animals dead in Australia fires

Kangaroo corpses lay scattered by the roadsides while wombats that survived the wildfire's onslaught emerged from their underground burrows to find blackened earth and nothing to eat.

Wildlife rescue officials on Wednesday worked frantically to help the animals that made it through Australia's worst-ever wildfires but they said millions of animals likely perished in the inferno.

Scores of kangaroos have been found around roads, where they were overwhelmed by flames and smoke while attempting to flee, said Jon Rowdon, president of the rescue group Wildlife Victoria.

Kangaroos that survived are suffering from burned feet, a result of their territorial behavior. After escaping the initial flames, the creatures — which prefer to stay in one area — likely circled back to their homes, singeing their feet on the smoldering ground.

"It's just horrific," said Neil Morgan, president of the Statewide Wildlife Rescue Emergency Service in Victoria, the state where the raging fires were still burning. "It's disaster all around for humans and animals as well."

Some wombats that hid in their burrows managed to survive the blazes, but those that are not rescued face a slow and certain death as they emerge to find their food supply gone, said Pat O'Brien, president of the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia.

The official human death toll stood at 181 from the weekend's deadly fires and authorities said it would exceed 200. While the scope of the wildlife devastation was still unclear, it was likely to be enormous, Rowdon said.

"There's no doubt across that scale of landscape and given the intensity of the fires, millions of animals would have been killed," he said.

Hundreds of burned, stressed and dehydrated animals — including kangaroos, koalas, lizards and birds — have already arrived at shelters across the scorched region. Rescuers have doled out antibiotics, pain relievers and fluids to the critters in a bid to keep them comfortable, but some of the severely injured were euthanized to spare any more suffering.

"We've got a wallaby joey at the moment that has crispy fried ears because he stuck his head out of his mum's pouch and lost all his whiskers and cooked up his nose," Rowdon said. "They're the ones your hearts really go out to."

In some of the hardest-hit areas, rescuers used vaporizing tents to help creatures whose lungs were burned by the searing heat and smoke.

One furry survivor has emerged a star: a koala, nicknamed "Sam" by her rescuers, was found moving gingerly on scorched paws by a fire patrol on Sunday. Firefighter David Tree offered the animal a bottle of water, which she eagerly accepted, holding Tree's hand as he poured water into her mouth — a moment captured in a photograph seen around the world.

"You all right, buddy?" Tree asks in a video of the encounter as he approaches the koala. Later, as Sam thirstily gulps from the bottle, he quips: "How much can a koala bear?"

Often mistakenly called koala bears because they resemble a child's teddy bear, the marsupial is actually a rather grumpy creature with a loud growl and sharp claws.

Sam is being treated at the Mountain Ash Wildlife Shelter in Rawson, 100 miles (170 kilometers) east of Melbourne, where she has attracted the attention of a male koala, nicknamed "Bob," manager Coleen Wood said. The two have been inseparable, with Bob keeping a protective watch over his new friend, she said.

Meanwhile, workers at the shelter were scrambling to salve the wounds of possums, kangaroos, lizards — "everything and anything," Wood said.

"We had a turtle come through that was just about melted — still alive," Wood said. "The whole thing was just fused together — it was just horrendous. It just goes to show how intense (the fire) was in the area."

The animals arriving appear stressed, but generally seem to understand the veterinarians are trying to help them, Wood said. Kangaroos and koalas are widespread in Australia and are not particularly afraid of humans.

Volunteers from the animal welfare group Victorian Advocates for Animals filled 10 giant bins with 2,300 dead grey-headed flying foxes that succumbed to heat stroke Saturday, said Lawrence Pope, the group's president. Volunteers tried to save some of the bats by giving them fluids and keeping them cool, Pope said, but the creatures were simply too stressed and perished.

"It's heartbreaking," Pope said. "They're very endearing animals and to see them die right before our eyes is something that wildlife rescuers and carers just find appalling."

POOR animals!

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Singapore gets NEW animal attraction



SINGAPORE will get another top-drawer tourist attraction in 2011, when a $140 million river safari theme park will be completed.
To be carved out of the same 89-hectare Mandai area which houses the Zoo and Night Safari, the park, the first of its kind in Asia, will have some new species of wildlife, boat rides and special displays of freshwater habitats.

Few other details were released yesterday - the park has not even been named yet - but it is understood that some of the 4,000 animals in the Zoo and Night Safari's collection, mostly aquatic animals like manatees and fish, will be moved there.

Successful river theme parks elsewhere, such as Florida's Silver Springs Nature Theme Park, give visitors the chance to view marine life through cruises on glass-bottomed boats, as well as animal exhibits and fun rides.

Yesterday, Ms Fanny Lai, the group chief executive officer of Wildlife Reserves, which will run the new park in addition to the Zoo and Night Safari, said the attraction will give visitors a chance to get up close and personal with the animals. This will help create a 'greater awareness of freshwater habitat conservation', she said.

She added that the company began working on the idea of a new park two years ago, and that it is now an 'opportune time' to embark on it.

Though Singapore is now grappling with a drop in tourism as economies the world over reel from the effects of a recession, observers expect things to pick up by the time the new park is ready in 2011.

The river safari will make Mandai, already a must-visit destination for tourists and Singaporeans alike, even more popular: The Zoo and Night Safari pulled in 1.6 million and 1.1 million visitors, respectively, last year.

The new park is expected to draw at least 750,000 more, said Wildlife Reserves Singapore, the operator of all three attractions.

Tourism players and Singaporeans alike were excited by the prospect of a new park.

Royal Plaza on Scotts' general manager Patrick Fiat said: 'The more, the merrier. These new attractions will allow tourists to spend more time here, or come again because they didn't manage to visit something the first time round.'

Added taxi driver Ng Seng Nguan, 52: 'It will cater to different people and give more variety, which is more interesting.'

Visit Singapore Today.

Come, come, visit Singapore, Don't shy


STB gives tourism industry a $90 million BOOST

Singaporeans and visitors can look forward to better deals from the tourism industry in the year ahead, with the Singapore Tourism Board set to inject 90 million dollars into the sector.

Recognising the tough times ahead, a new initiative known as BOOST will focus on positioning Singapore as an affordable business and leisure destination.

Revealing more details at a media conference today, STB said it'd be launching a year-long marketing branding campaign called "2009 Reasons to enjoy Singapore".

Discounted airfare and packages for visitors will be available to promote Singapore as a short-haul destination.

To help companies alleviate their business costs, STB will enhance its current assistance schemes and funding support.

Tour guide and travel agent licence fees will be waived this year.

There are about 1,800 tour guides and 800 travel agents in Singapore.

And targeting the business community, conventions and exhibitions will receive additional funding support of up to 70 percent for event hosting fee.

Strengthening the capability of the sector is another key thrust of BOOST, and emphasis will be placed on helping companies upgrade their employees' skills.

Singapore residents too, stand to benefit from the BOOST programme.

As a start, free entry at selected attractions will be offered, as well as GST-free shopping at participating retail outlets.

When asked to sum up the sentiment of the tourism industry currently, STB Chief Executive Aw Kah Peng said that industry players were cautious, but optimistic.

"I mean nobody is suggesting that it is easy. So I think they are realistic. But we also sense that there is a lot of energy, as well as optimism. Because clearly, if you are talking to the people who are opening new hotels and building new ones, they're doing it for a reason, because there's going to be growth. So I must say that people understand the current situation. But that has not dampened their longer term outlook."

STB forecasts that the number of tourist arrivals in Singapore is expected to fall to between 9 million and 9.5 million this year, down from 10.1 million last year.

Total tourism receipts generated are also expected to fall to a range of 12 to 12.5 billion dollars this year a drop from the 14.8 billion dollars generated in 2008.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Boy feared snatched by crocodile

SYDNEY - A FIVE-YEAR-OLD boy is feared to have been snatched by a crocodile in floodwaters in northern Australia while walking with his dog on Sunday, police said.

'The boy was walking with his seven-year-old brother earlier this morning when he followed his dog into floodwaters,' police said in a statement.

'He disappeared in the water and his brother saw a large crocodile in the vicinity of his disappearance.' A large-scale search for the boy has been launched at Cape Tribulation in far north Queensland.

Police were also searching for two people missing after their car was washed away as they tried to drive through floodwaters south of Tully in Queensland.

Much of the state has been declared a disaster zone, with an area of more than a million square kilometres and 3,000 homes affected by floods due to torrential rains.

Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate and others have been stranded in their homes.

Rain continued to fall on the saturated state on Sunday, easing in the worst-hit north but threatening to flood areas that have so far escaped the monsoonal downpours.

'Tomorrow, the monsoon trough continues its movements south and the bulk of the rain will head down towards Rockhampton,' a weather bureau spokesman said.

'We can expect local flooding to occur as that rain moves south.' While the north of eastern Australia has been swamped, the south has faced scorching heat and deadly wildfires.

The death toll from bushfires raging through Victoria state soared to 35 Sunday and was set to mount in a disaster Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described as 'hell in all its fury.' Most of those killed were caught up in an inferno northwest of Melbourne, where entire townships had been razed in the firestorm, which continued to burn out of control on Sunday. -- AFP

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Huge snake fossil found!

Stunned scientists have found the fossilised remains of the world's greatest snake -- a record-busting serpent that was as long as a bus and snacked on crocodiles.

The boa-like behemoth ruled the tropical rainforests of what is now Colombia some 60 million years ago, at a time when the world was far hotter than now, they report in a study released on Wednesday.

The size of the snake's vertebrae suggest the beast weighed some 1.135 tonnes, in a range of 730 kilos (1,600 pounds) to 2.03 tonnes.

And it measured 13 metres (42.7 feet) from nose to tail, in a range of 10.64-15 metres (34.6-48.75 feet), they estimate.

"Truly enormous snakes really spark people's imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood," said Jonathan Block, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of Florida, who co-led the work.

"The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie 'Anaconda' is not as big as the one we found."

"At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips," said David Polly, a geologist at the University of Indiana at Bloomington.

The investigators found the remains of the new species at an unlikely location -- at one of the world's biggest open-cast coalmines, in Cerrejon, Colombia, where giant machines had obligingly gnawed away surface layers of dirt.

Working as huge coal-laden trucks thundered by, the team sifted through the earth, laying bare the remains of supersized snakes and their likely prey -- extinct species of crocodiles and giant turtles -- and evidence that a massive rainforest once covered the ground.

"The giant Colombian snake is a truly exciting discovery. For years, herpetologists have argued about just how big snakes can get, with debatable estimates of the max somewhere less than 40 feet" (12.3 metres), said leading snake expert Harry Greene of Cornell University, New York.

Titanoboa cerrejonensis -- whose Latin name honours the coal mine -- is not only a source of jaw-dropping wonder.

It is also a useful indicator as to the world's climate after the dinosaurs were wiped out some 65 million years ago, the team say.

Unlike mammals, reptiles cannot regulate their own temperature.

As a result, they are limited in body size by the ambient temperature of where they live. For example, reptiles today are bigger in the tropics than they are in cooler latitudes.

Based on T. cerrejonensis, the scientists calculate that the mean annual temperature in equatorial South America 60 million years ago would have been 30-34 degrees Celsius, or 86-93 degrees Fahrenheit.

That makes it around 3-4 C (5.5-7.2 F) hotter than tropical rainforests today.

If so, this is a welcome piece of news about climate change.

Simulations about global warming suggest that, on present trends, the world's surface temperatures could rise by between 1.8-4.0 C (3.2-7.2 F) by 2100.

If the supersnakes are a guide, tropical rain forests could still exist at such temperatures, although a fast, massive rise in warming could well be devastating to many species.

The paper is published by the British-based weekly science journal Nature.

The world's longest snake today is the Asian reticulated python, specimens of which can grow around 10 metres (32.5 feet), and the biggest in terms of mass is the green anaconda, with some specimens weighing 227 kilos (550 pounds).

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Stolen tortoise case

Owner of 10 stolen exotic tortoises worth almost $75,000 have got seven of them back - but the man who returned them is now assisting the police with their investigations.

According to the owners of the Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum at the Chinese Garden in Jurong, he resembles one of the two thieves caught on closed-circuit television (CCTV) making off with the reptiles.

The Indian Star Tortoises and highly endangered Radiated Tortoises were stolen on Saturday night.