Visitors decline as city zoo becomes a bore

Boggart’s death sparked a decline in the number of visitors to the Cebu City Zoo.

The approximately five-year-old Bengal tiger which was the top attraction of the zoo in barangay Kalunasan died six months ago.

For three years, Boggart was a pet of a foreign resident and was handed over to the zoo’s care in 2007. What made the tiger unique was that it walks with a limp. Boggart was afflicted with polio.

Zoo manager Giovanni Stephen Romarate told the Cebu City Council in last Tuesday’s budget hearing that with Boggart gone, there is nothing that would make the local zoo an interesting place to visit.

“Visitors are bored with the city zoo. Only outside visitors kept coming back,” Romarate said as he asked for a P17.6 million budget to enable the zoo to acquire more animals and fund the improvement of zoo’s facilities.

The City Council however only allocated P5.6 million for the zoo’s upkeep. “Whoever took the P12 million (from your budget request) it wasn’t the council,” Councilor Margot Osmeña told Romarate.

Osmeña, who chairs the budget committee, asked Romarante to furnish the council a copy of his P17.6 million budget proposal.

He said the biggest chunk of the zoo’s budget amounting to P7 million would pay for the fencing off of the 7.6 -hectare lot.

About P3.4 million will be used to buy food and veterinary supplies while P1.6 million will pay for maintenance and development. Romarate said they also need half a million to pay for training of personnel in Subic Safari. Osmeña said zoo management can cut costs by inviting resource persons from Subic to train local zookeepers./Chief of Reporters Doris C. Bongcac