Paradizoo
Paradizoo
Paradizoo is located only a short distance away from Tagaytay in Mendez, Cavite in the Philippines. It looks upon itself as a zoo and a farm combined. The description fits the place very well. It is a pleasant site to walk around and there are some interesting farm exhibits. As to the 'zoo' side of things these are fairly limited and consist mainly of semi domestics like Ostrich and Alpacas. The Paradizoo operates as a glorified animal supplier and sells Camels, Deer, Alpacas, Pigs and more.
One of the more unusual services offered by the Paradizoo is that they have a cemetry for pets. For a fee your much loved cat or dog can be buried here for a fee,
The Paradizoo is part of the Zoobic Safari empire which includes the nearby Residence Inn Zoo and the Animal Wonderland in Star City. Very sadly these are dysfunctional zoos and contribute little or nothing to conservation.
The entrance fee to Paradizoo is around 200 Pesos. Extra would be to pay for the shuttle service from Manila. Cheaper still would be to take a bus and stop overnight in Tagaytay which is an interesting place to visit.
The following is taken from my Itinerant ZooKeeper journal and notes my visit to Paradizoo.
Thursday 26th April 2007
Leaving the Residence Zoo we travelled by bus, jeepney and tricycle to 'Paradizoo'. I thought this was going to be a separate place but it turned out to be owned by the Residence Inn as well. Not so much a zoo but a poor man's Kadoorie Farm. Still very much in the development stage and concentrating on domestics. Particular emphasis was been placed on education, and this was good to very good. As in Kadoorie there was a lot of crops. Animals consisted of all the usual domestics but including bees, fighting cocks, ostriches and llamas. There was even a five legged bull! Haven't seen one of those since I was eight. Freak shows are not
my scene. All in all though this place was good. It was clean, neat and educational and I quite liked it. I really was impressed with the goat house. It beggars the question then as to why the same sort of effort and intelligence cannot/could not be put into the zoo.
I know I have rabbited on about dog cages before but it is my sincere belief that if this method of keeping 'pets' at home could be shown to be totally unacceptable then all the 'zoo' housing problems would be solved as well. The one cannot be done without the other. These damn dog cages are cruelty in the extreme and yet contain much loved animals. They know no better. Cruelty by ignorance.