The Dehiwala Zoo Is Beautiful

By Michael Hardy

Ever since I arrived in Sri Lanka I’ve heard nothing  but disparaging remarks about the Dehiwala Zoo. People told me the facilities were in disrepair, the animals were mistreated, there were terrible odours…in short, that the zoo had gone to seed. These warnings kept me away from the zoo for four months, but last week I decided to see this supposed dump for myself. When I told my fiancée I was going, she told me to skip it.
“It’s terrible,” she said. “Don’t go.”

Well, I went. And discovered one of Sri Lanka’s hidden treasures, a sprawling  wilderness preserve carved out of Colombo’s urban landscape, a tropical retreat from the noise and heat of daily life. I found well-fed animals, well-designed facilities, and — surprise, surprise — no bad smells whatsoever. What I did not find were many visitors. People were probably staying away for the same reason I was: the zoo’s totally inaccurate reputation as a hellhole. I certainly didn’t see any tourists, who were presumably warned by their guidebooks to stay away (and the Rs. 2,000 admission fee for foreigners probably isn’t helping things). I noticed a few Sri Lankans turning away from the wildlife to stare at me, and I wondered when the last white person had visited the zoo. I was apparently even more exotic than the cheetahs.

Their loss was my gain, I thought, as I wandered leisurely through the nearly-deserted zoo. Yes, the zoo has suffered neglect since being built in 1936, but in all the most important respects the zoo compared favourably with the  best Western zoos. Unlike at American zoos, there were no crowds to push through, nobody blocking my view, no kids shouting at animals or banging on cages. Since there were fewer barriers between humans and animals than at American zoos I could get a much better look at animals I had only seen at a distance before.

I watched a pair of lions wrestle playfully and was mesmerized by their  tawny coats and majestic manes. The lions I’d seen in America seemed drugged and tame compared to these energetic beasts. Next door to the lions were the tigers, which seemed even better fed and had even more luxurious coats than their neighbours. Next came the jaguar, with its beautifully-patterned coat of orange and black.  I must have just missed feeding time, because chicken carcasses were abundant in every enclosure. Since the animals had evidently had their fill, this meat was now being devoured by the crows.
Then came to the animals I had never seen before. I almost laughed when I saw the zoo’s lone capybara, which reminded me of a giant hamster. Like the kangaroo, this furry, rat-like animal seemed proof that nature has a sense of humour. My favourite discovery, however, were the spider monkeys.

On a generous piece of land surrounded by a wide moat and planted with tall trees were the four or five long-tailed monkeys, indigenous to Central and South America. Like the zoo’s other animals, the monkeys were remarkably active, scurrying up trees and using their tails to swing from branch to branch. One was hanging upside down from its tail for no apparent reason and two more were high up in the tree, grooming each other.

I went on to see the wild horses, the giraffes, the pygmy hippos, the exotic birds, and, of course, the elephants. When darkness fell and a security guard asked me to leave, I had only explored a portion of the zoo’s collection. I could easily have spent several more hours observing the reptiles, amphibians, and other sea life, and I decided to come back soon with my skeptical fiancée.

It’s often the case that tourists discover things that locals have forgotten or simply haven’t visited in a while; it seems like I only visit Central Park in New York when I’m taking someone on a sightseeing tour. I believe that once Sri Lankans see the truth for themselves the nasty rumours about the Dehiwela Zoo will disappear and the park will once again take its rightful place as one of Sri Lanka’s greatest attractions.