After reading an article in Arab Times about the Zoo management accepting criticism I figured with that the Kuwait Zoo had turned a new leaf and has changed for the better. Well I was there today and nothing has changed.
To be fair, the 3 new bear enclosures are a huge improvement over everything else at the zoo. They’ve also fixed the Bony sign by covering up the bottom right part of the B so that it now looks like a P. And that’s it. Thats the only two things that have improved.
The worst part about the whole zoo has to be the security guards. People were feeding the animals, throwing bottles of water at the animals, throwing garbage and jumping over the protective barriers while the security guards did nothing. I went up to one security guard and asked him if it was allowed to feed the animals, he told me no it wasn’t. I then asked him why he was letting people feed the animals or kids throw bottles at the bears. He pretended to be dumb and asked me who was doing that, I just pointed to the crowd standing next to him and told him they all are. He just looked at me confused and wondered off. A few minutes later we were near the monkey cages and I noticed two little kids over the fence feeding the animals with their parents proudly standing and watching. What was even more terrible was the fact there was a security guard sitting on a chair also just watching. I went up to him as well and asked him why he wasn’t doing anything about the kids over the barrier. I asked him what if one of the monkeys bit one of the kids? He just smiled back at me, he didn’t care.
As you can see in the picture above the two kids are over the barrier. In the second picture below you can see the security guard in the chair watching the kids in the background over the barrier.
Everywhere I looked there were people just throwing stuff at the animals and no one was doing anything about it. But the thing is, it’s not their fault. People aren’t expected to know they can’t feed the animals and I only saw one “Don’t feed the animals” sign in the whole zoo. It’s the job of the zoo to educate people, they should put up signs in multiple languages telling people not to feed or throw stuff at the animals and they should be located outside all the cages and enclosures. It’s then the job of the security guards to enforce the rules when they are broken. In both cases the zoo has failed miserably.
28 replies on “The Kuwait Zoo… it’s still a mess”
i was planning to go there next week 🙁
Mark are you sure it wasn’t the Agaad that the people were feeding?
Like anything a Kuwaiti tells you, it’s all just a bunch of empty promises and nothing gets done, unless you get down and dirty into political stuff and get a person of high respect/importance in society to intervene. Jeez, we’re a ignorant nation! 🙂
They should get a wild gorilla exhibit and make the cage wide enough for the gorilla to get his arms through, then they should feed the gorillas meat to make them aggressive. That way when parents are stupid enough to let their children abuse the animals, the gorillas can rip one of the children to shreds. I see this as a viable solution, it uses operant conditioning to teach new behavior.
The guards have no incentive to stop them, because they are not employed by the zoo, rather they are contracted employees for the cheapest-for-the-KD rate company who just supplies people to sit and warm chairs.
Did you seriously expect them to give a damn? Mark – how long have you been in Kuwait man. Next you’ll be telling me that the security people at the airport don’t stop anyone from smoking! Gasp!
God help the animals.
BONY!!! lool we know who wrote that sign!! mush kidda?
They should exhibit 3agads in the zoo. Instant hit! =P
The cops don’t give a hoot about the maniacs on the road who kill other human beings,, now tell me why should they care about animal abuse???
It looks like someone spit on the “Bony” sign to make “Pony”, Man i went there last month ,was shocked to see how small the cages are i mean how they keep such a large animals in such a small place.
They really should rename the Kuwait Zoo to Inhumane Animal Abuse center.
Burhan – atleast mark is making ppl talking about it .
mark – good job respec
You want to see a well kept zoo? Try the zoo in Riyadh. Kuwait can really learn from it.
https://zoo.com.sa/riyadhzoo/gallery.aspx
Or just google for “riyadh zoo images” > https://www.google.com/images?q=riyadh+zoo+images
dude secuirty guards cant do anyting to the kids why? because the women at abaya start shouting like bitched spit on security guards catch his collar etc/..thjey harras him… and some ppl wont read watever is written in watever language..
i went there last week wih my frds and you’re right.. the Zoo is terrible especially when you go see some wild life animals which you can not see because of all the barriers that they made plus I love feeding the giraffe but they were sick or something!! it’s a mess man I hope someone in some ministry reads the comment you wrote and do something.. either shot it down or fix it!
The zoo management is only partly to blame.Those kids behave that way due to bad parenting.The parents should know better than to have their kids litter and feed the animals.
Don’t worry their shutting it down and openning one in a far area due to the area people and some other reason!
100% agree with smoothy. The Parents are the ones to blame. And it’s not going to change this generation.
Wow o.o more than 11 years since I visted this place , it still didn’t change a bit …
Zoos should be banned in all countries.There is enough on TV/Internet for study,etc purposes.Zoos are prisons for animals.It is.Encourage wild life parks. Kuwait can afford in spite of the hot weather. Why its not done….the same questions/answers will remain.
@ Roopesh.You do realize that most of those animals won’t survive due to Kuwait’s climate and lack of vegetation.
The Kuwait Zoo has a FACEBOOK page and it TWITTERS
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kuwait-Zoo/125412753745#!/pages/Kuwait-Zoo/125412753745?v=info
https://twitter.com/kuwait_zoo
Also contact the Kuwait Embassy in Canada
https://www.embassyofkuwait.ca/
or the UK
https://kuwait.embassyhomepage.com/contact_us_kuwaiti_embassy_london_uk_kuwaiti_visa_kuwait_tourist_information_flights_kuwait.htm
I would like to say that this blows my mind that people are that ignorant and disrespectful, but I have been in here long enough that it isn’t surprising. I just don’t understand how parents and children alike can think that it’s ok to throw stuff at the animals. It’s not ok to throw stuff at other people, so why would it be ok at the zoo. Wow, common sense is rare these days.
so sad.
This is just beyond sad.
But you are wrong in regards to only one sign, there’s more than one.
And come on, it’s not the people’s fault?!
Is there NO common sense at all in Kuwait that nothing’s ever the people’s fault?
Yes, the security guard should do his damn job, but the people should also use their brains.
It’s common sense everywhere else that you should not feed animals in a Zoo, let alone throw bottles. It is common sense not to leave your trash at the beach for another idiot to pick up when the trash cans are standing right there.
Don’t get me started on ‘It’s not their fault’….
*rant over*
Btw. I turned my camera on two youngsters that were throwing food at the eagles and vultures. They looked quite scared and wandered off (to do it somewhere out of my reach I bet).
But thing is, they obviously knew what they shouldn’t be doing.
Nicole, I walked through the main attractions int the zoo and was ready to post that there were no signs at all until i spotted the one above outside the giraffe enclosure.
I walked past almost all the cages, Mark.
There are more signs 🙂
I took a shot of the same sign you did, but the birds have one and there are more at other places.
ah maybe the bird cages had them, i didn’t pass by the birds since they were of no interest to me just the big animals.
The Government is the problem. The zoo and the animals still haven’t made it to the priority list for the Government’s budget. The administration at the zoo has drawn up expansion plans, but they’ve got a very limited budget so all they can do right now is maintenance.
They’re also trying to establish a rescue shelter for animals and have already submitted an official request to the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources, who agreed to it.
So it’s really not the zoo administration’s fault that the zoo sucks, it’s the Government’s fault.