Cages, Moats and the Unfinished Rebuild

Reviews of Thiruvananthapuram Zoo divide more sharply than those of almost any other attraction in the city. One visitor describes magnificent old grounds and a serious primate collection; the next describes cages that belong to another era. Both are looking at the same place, and both are right, because the rebuild that would reconcile them started in 1995 and is not finished.

What is actually here

The department reports 1,025 animals of 98 species. The strength of the collection is regional: the lion-tailed macaque and the Nilgiri langur, both Western Ghats endemics, alongside Royal Bengal tigers, leopards, Asiatic lions, Indian rhinoceros and Asian elephants. There is an African component too — hippopotamus, giraffe, zebra, Cape buffalo — and a reptile house with pythons, anacondas and crocodiles. Around fourteen lakh people come through the gate each year, which for a fifty-five-acre garden in the middle of a state capital is a great deal of footfall.

The macaques are the serious part

The lion-tailed macaque is the animal to seek out, and not because it is charismatic — though the silver mane makes it unmistakable. It exists nowhere on earth outside the rainforest of the Western Ghats, its habitat is fragmented by plantations and roads, and it is endangered. This zoo participates in the national conservation breeding programme for the species. That is a different activity from displaying animals: it means coordinated pairings across institutions, studbooks, and a population managed as one rather than as a set of local collections. If you want a reason to feel differently about a city zoo, it is this.

The unfinished rebuild

The modernisation programme began in 1995 with Central Zoo Authority backing, replacing barred cages with more naturalistic enclosures — moats instead of bars, planted ground, space designed around what an animal actually does. Walk the site and you will pass through both eras within a few minutes. Some enclosures are broad, wooded and generous; others are older, smaller and clearly built to a standard the modernisation was written to replace.

We would rather say that plainly than write the sentence a tourism page would write. A nineteenth-century layout is a real asset for trees and a real constraint for animals: the paths, the lake and the mature planting cannot simply be bulldozed to make room, and every enlargement has to be fitted into a heritage garden. That is a genuine difficulty rather than an excuse, and it is the reason progress since 1995 has been steady rather than quick.

Going, or not

If zoos trouble you, this is not the one that will change your mind, and the grounds alone are not a reason to buy a ticket you would rather not buy — Kanakakunnu across the road gives you old trees and lawns for nothing. If you do go, go at opening time. The animals are active in the cool of the morning, the light under the trees is at its best, and the school parties have not arrived. Feeding is prohibited, the gates close on Mondays, and last entry is well before closing time, so an afternoon arrival can be tight.

The history of the grounds — including the founding date that turns out to be wrong — is in A Garden That Acquired Animals, and the compound it shares is covered in Three Institutions, One Wall.