"Zoo-Ed Magazine" and zoo memories

My earliest memories of the zoo go all the way back to my primary school days in the 1970s. My siblings and I had always longed to go to the zoo, just like many children would. Finally, one fine day, my parents decided that we would go the zoo for a family outing. The sky was gloomy that day, and not long after we had reached the zoo, it started to pour. My mother was so frustrated that she told my father that we should go home. We had barely seen a few animals, and I so much wanted to see the tiger, so this came as a real let down. Besides, my father had paid for all our entrance fees, and I thought it was such a waste. This is probably one of the saddest days in my life as a child. 1979. I was in primary 5 studying at Siglap Primary School. One day my school publicized a new magazine known as “Zoo-Ed” to the students. It caught my attention as it was a publication about the zoo. I bought a copy for 50 cents. The cover showed a polar bear, a new addition to the zoo and the magazine was dated April, 1979. The information on the cover page described how an older magazine, “Zoo-M”, would not be phased out completely, but rather would be published annually instead of quarterly. Zoo-Ed, however, would take over it as the zoo’s quarterly publication, and that “it is orientated far more towards the educational aspects of the school’s science and biology syllabus”. It also mentioned that the “target readers are students from the primary and secondary schools not forgetting their teachers”. Interestingly, it mentioned that the publishing of Zoo-Ed was prompted by the attachment of three full-time teachers to the zoo from the Ministry of Education. I must thank these three teachers, for without them, probably I might not have encountered this wonderful magazine. I started collecting this magazine, though not on a regular basis. For some reasons, I missed buying certain issues. One of my favourite features is this section called “Looking at Trees”. It focused on common roadside trees in Singapore, and provided both detailed write-ups and colour photos of these trees with their flowers and fruits. The first issue was on the “Angsana” and “Flame of the Forest” trees. Incidentally, there were some Flame of the Forest trees near the school vicinity, including the Yellow Flame. These were trees that I saw so often in my everyday life then. I remember some classes actually got their students to pin this section onto the class noticeboard. They were able to do that because the magazine came in the form of loose sheets in A3 size. This tree section was printed on two connected pages, which formed one sheet of the magazine. So it can be quite large, and suitable for the noticeboard. Here is a list of the trees that were featured in different issues : Issue 1 : “Angsana” and “Flame of the Forest” Issue 2 : “The Papaya and the Mango trees” Issue 3 : “Rain Tree and African Tulip” Issue 4 : “The Sea Hibiscus and Sea Almond trees” Regrettably, they stopped this series after issue 4. Another interesting feature which I like is the illustrated section on insects and common animals, printed on a large format, over two connected pages. Here is a list of the illustrations featured in different issues : Issue 1: “Characteristics of an Insect” Issue 2: “The Life Cycle of a Culex Mosquito” Issue 3 : “The Life Cycle of a Housefly” Issue 4 : “The Life Cycle of a Butterfly” Issue 5 : “Life of a Short-Horned Grasshopper” Issue 6 : “Gecko” Issue 7 : “Frogs and Toads” Issue 8 : “The Fish : Tilapia” Issue 9 : “The Bird : Pigeon” Issue 10 : No information. Issue 11 : “The Cockroach” Back to the polar bear mentioned earlier that was featured on the cover page of the inaugural issue. Sheeba (the female) came from Cologne Zoo, Germany on April 14, 1978, when she was only 14 months old. Nanook (the male) was a gift from the Canadian government. Dr Tan Eng Liang, the then Senior Minister of State for Finance opened the new Polar Bear exhibit in the same year to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the zoo (the Singapore Zoo was opened on June 27, 1973). Recently, my sister showed me a newspaper cut-out which showed the passing away of Sheba at the age of 35 years (strangely the newspaper mentioned its name as Sheba rather than Sheeba, the latter of which was the name given in Zoo-Ed). The report stated that “a close evaluation revealed her prognosis was poor, and had to be euthanised on humanitarian grounds” and that “Sheba had far exceeded the normal lifespan of a polar bear”. I felt a sudden sense of loss, as I vaguely remember seeing the polar bears in the zoo in my subsequent trips to the zoo as an adult. Fortunately, Sheeba left behind an offspring, Inuka, which is 21 years old now. Some of the information above about the polar bears exhibit was obtained from the section “O.T.’s Zoo News”, which was a regular feature at the back page of the magazine. The character, O.T. otter played the role of a zoo news reporter and brought to the readers the latest news about the zoo. It stated that “nothing escapes my keen little ears or sharp eyes” and that “I’m especially good at picking up interesting news bits because I live near the zoo’s entrance : No. 1, Zoo Avenue, Singapore Zoological Gardens, 80 Mandai Road, Singapore 25” (its still using the two-digit postal code at that time, as the four-digit postal code was only introduced on 1st July 1979, as mentioned in one of my previous articles). One interesting fact to note was the announcement of an increment in the entrance fees : $2.50 instead of $2.00 for adults and $1.20 instead of $1.00 for children. Now I know that my father paid a total of $9.00 for our family’s entrance fees (there were seven of us) in our first and only family outing to the zoo. I just checked the zoo website and found the following : adult fees : $22.00 and children (3 to 12 years old) : $14.00 and senior citizens : $11.00. If the seven of us have gone to the zoo now, it would have cost us $132.00 ! The Zoo-Ed magazine was relaunched in 2004 as “Wildlife Wonders”. Its really amazing to note that this children educational magazine actually ran continuously for 25 years, and now has evolved to continue its mission. Since the first unsuccessful family outing to the zoo, I never return to the zoo until my army days, which was more than a decade later. The year was 1988, when my army unit celebrated the Engineers Formation Day in the zoo. It was a very strange yet warm feeling that I had when I stepped into the zoo again. However, I cannot remember what I saw in the zoo that day, but certainly the sight of the animals must have thrilled me in some ways, as it was an unfulfilled childhood dream. When I started working in the 1990s, I had a chance to return to the zoo with two of my colleagues, who happened to be animal lovers too. That was quite a memorable experience. I remember seeing some visitors who started to feed the lemurs, and my colleagues tried to stop them as they probably fear that they might have fed them with the wrong stuff. On a separate occasion, I actually went all the way from my home in Bedok to the zoo for a personal retreat, thinking that I would be able to escape from familiar faces. Nevertheless, I still met somebody I know that day. I guess the zoo is a rather popular place, after all. In 2001, I went on a trip to New Zealand with a friend. We visited the Auckland Zoo, and I was rather thrilled by it, as they have animals like the Red Panda which were not found in Singapore Zoo then (but now I think they have them in the River Safari). Since then, whenever I got a chance to visit different parts of the world, I would try to visit the zoo whenever I have the opportunity. I had also been to the Taipei Zoo and London Zoo, and hope to visit more zoos in different parts of the world. I think my first love for the zoo really started from the Singapore Zoo, but now it has expanded to zoos from other countries. The Singapore Zoo celebrated its 40th birthday this year. I believe it will continue to be a place that both inspires and carries the collective memories of many generations of Singaporeans. Happy birthday, Singapore Zoo !