Celebrating inside the city zoo

Instead of holding a children’s party for the second birthday of her son, Cheryl Quiqui decided to hold the celebration inside the Cebu City zoo so the family can have a different experience.

With lunch consisting of lumpia, spaghetti, fried chicken and fruit salad for dessert, two-year-old Archilles Troy Quiqui celebrated his second birthday on Dec. 10 in an airy shed below a tree house at the zoo.

“Nisuway lang sad mi diri aron palahi sad, karon pa mi kaari,” said Cheryl. (We wanted to try it out here for a different experience. It’s our first time here.)

In recent months, as the 7.6-hectare facility is fast becoming an alternative venue for celebrations and recreational activities.

Zoo manager Giovanni Romarate said that aside from the different kind of ambiance in the zoo, visitors are also allowed to experience personal encounter with animals.

The “interactive” zoo experience that Romarate created allows visitors to touch the animals, including crocodiles, under the supervision of a zoo keeper.

“People will have a better understanding of the animals if they are able to actually touch them. It’s easier to educate our visitors on the need to protect flora and fauna if they are able to have a personal encounter with our animals,” said Romarate who started as a zoo manager in 2007.

Romarate said the city government will have to allocate some P100 million to P200 million to operate in “full swing” a zoo equipped with a variety of animals placed in cages resembling their natural habitats.

But because of budgetary constraints, most of the animals in the city zoo are either rescued or donated by friends.

The city zoo has a deer, a variety of birds, crocodiles, monkeys, turtles, Burmese pythons and a palm civet. Its lone Bengal tiger named “Boggart” died of old age six months ago.

A hawk eagle which he rescued from Naga City three years ago is now on display. The eagle, Romarate said, had broken wings and a slug on its back when it was found and turned over to him.

Romarate is an agriculture graduate who has developed fondness for animals because of the influence of his father who was a hunter-turned-animal lover. He helped nurse the hawk eagle until its gunshot wound healed.

Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama said he will allocate money to acquire additional zoo animals if there is already enough City Hall funds.

“I am for keeping the city zoo because this is a place where we allow our children to see what real life animals are like,” he said.

The city zoo gets an allocation of about P5 million per year from the city government. Only P1 million is spent on animals feeds as the bulk of the allocation is spent on salaries of zoo personnel.

The city zoo is run by 20 personnel consisting of four casuals including Romarate and 16 job order workers who are paid at least P320 per day.

The City Council approved an additional P1 million allocation in the 2014 budget for the installation of water pipes at the city zoo, which has a newly completed view deck equipped with comfort rooms.

Innovations

To help raise income for the zoo, the staff have innovated “gimmicks” to keep people coming back, like giving names to their animals. The pythons that give snake massage are named Michelle, Walter, EJ and Daniel.

Romarate named their hawk eagle Steve while their crocodile have been named Marian.

To add life to the zoo, one of their workers, Junjun Zapanta, painted a mural on the firewall that separates the zoo from a nearby residential area. The mural, which he called “The Pride,” shows what the wild is actually like with tigers and crocodiles.

Materials used for the mural were donated by businessmen helping in the zoo’s operation by giving out free feeds to its animals.