Tsimbazaza Zoo, Antananarivo Province, Madagascar

3Ronald_jelle 5:00 PM Aug 3, 2011

The parc itself is green and relaxing, but........
It has to be said, the parc is nice... a lot of green and exotic trees and relatively quiet in comparisson to the rest of the dirty and noisy town.. in that sense it's worth a visit. Also some of the animals have space and live in good conditions, but others live in very bad conditions things i have only encountered in the Zoo of Kathmandu. The maki's, the birds and two types of lemur live in nice open spaces, some more lemur in smaller but still 'ok' cages and then if you look further you see a whole group of them, behind a building in small cages and some of them seem to have lost their minds. The Zoo is not the worst Zoo i ever visited and it has lots of green, but for me after seeing all three i must say this Zoo would end up and number 3 of Animal Parcs in the Tana region, after the Lemur Parc and the Crocodile farm, these last two simply took better care of their animals and their parcs. So if you stay in Tana, this is an opportunity to see a lot of lemur and other animals, but remember a few kilometers outside town you have much better alternatives.

3Annette G 5:00 PM Feb 22, 2017

The Tana zoo from a zookeeper perspective
As a zookeeper for many years, I can't bear it when people are overly critical of zoological collections. The Tana zoo is very concrete and some of the enclosures are pretty small, but this doesn't mean to say that the animals are having the worst time. In fact, many of the animals look in quite good shape. The only issues I have are that the enclosures could have more branching and greenery in them to give more shade/hiding places/climbing opportunities and that the animals could do with some more environmental enrichment. There was one lemur that was expressing stereotypical behaviour, possibly due to the lack of mental and physical stimulation alongside an issue it may have developed from its past. We have to remember though, that governmental funding to this zoo is slim to none- I heard it was cut drastically since early 2000s. There are many enclosures that have been financially supported by a number of internationally recognised zoos, such as Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and Zoo Duisberg, however, many of these donations were in the late 1990s and are in need of an update. It begs the question, where does the ticket money go? Sadly, it will be lost in the government and not delivered back to the people/animals. I didn't like that there were easy opportunities for the public to be able to touch the lemurs through mesh- they can bite and most animals will readily bite a finger if it is poked their their enclosure wall. Be mindful that lemurs can also carry rabies. Aside from all this, there are Aldabra tortoises, bush pigs, fosa, camels etc and a lovely garden with medicinal plants and a big lake. We didn't take a guide as we enjoy exploring by ourselves. You really don't need one to be honest. The park itself is lovely on a sunny day and the lake is really beautiful, with the queens' palace in the background.