Interesting fact 1 – Operations
NS works very differently from the Zoo mainly because the animals have to be active at night. Thus most feeding must be done in the evening to condition the animal to sleep in the day and eat at night. However conditioning is not the correct word to use in this case because these animals are usually nocturnal animals and are just exhibiting their natural behaviour. So I should say is we i.e. the human have adapted to their natural cycle of cleaning their compounds, preparing their food and doing the daily housekeeping chores in the day. Then we will start the feeding in the evening. (By then I wasn't around to participate already.. a pity I suppose.. )
Interesting fact 2 – Baby giraffe
A giraffe begins its life by falling six feet to the ground. The shock of the fall starts its breathing.
The first species of animals I met is a family of 3 African giraffes where baby girl Kayla (Not sure if the spelling is right) is almost a year old already. When she first arrived in Earth, she was almost 1.8m. That sure is one tall lady. A calf grows fast when young such that by 6 months, it can be quite independent of its mother if in the wild. However after that, the growth rate would be greatly decreased thus mama giraffe is not much taller than baby Kayla. And if you are wondering, baby giraffes unlike human, comes out legs first so as to balance themselves immediately. Nature fear that if the head comes out first, there might be some serious struggle which might cause breakage of neck. And yes, you guessed it, mama giraffe gives birth while standing.
Interesting fact 3 – More on giraffe
Giraffes only need to sleep deeply for 20 minutes each night.
I also learnt that the papa giraffe has a darker skin colour than the mama giraffe and that their print is like a finger print with nobody else having the same print as them. But what I like best about giraffe is the fact that they only need to sleep 20 minutes to 4 hours. Thus they were awake the whole time I was there, constantly munching their leaves and walking around. I sure wish I have such ability to gain the extra waking hours hmmm...
Interesting fact 3 - Food
Badger food was stewed! Keeper says this is to prevent choking. And I have to admit the smell of the stew is pretty tempting with the potatoes, carrots, quill eggs (unshelled, apparently the badger knows how to shelled eggs too), bean stalks etc. Oh and I was quite a klutz in the kitchen, being unable to even chop the chicken parts into smaller bites. Somehow the bones don't seem to get chopped up under my knife. Thus I ended up tying fruits with string and doing some simple tasks.
Interesting fact 4 - Porcupine
After the food preparation comes the food delivery (suddenly felt like those delivery man delivering those daily cooked food haha). While following the keeper, I met more animals e.g. the porcupines. There are 3 types of porcupines in NS-Leopard trail. The Long-tailed porcupine which had sadly lost her tail through some fright and will not be growing back again (exhibiting a behaviour much like the lizard except some lizards are able to regrow their tail).
The other 2 species were the Malayan and the Indian crested porcupines where the Indian crested are bigger in shape. Thus they were quite cool when they saw me and were not a least afraid of me. I even had the chance to feed the Indian crested porcupine each a bean stalk. They look so much like a big rodent when they were clawing the glass panel. Their neighbour, the Malayan porcupine on the other hand never stop rattling upon catching sight of me, turning her back towards me and raising all her quills at me that I got quite afraid too haha.
Interesting fact 5 – Slow Loris
The world's only poisonous primate.
Keeper says slow loris is not as slow as what the name says, especially when it comes to food. And that it may looks cute, but it is known to be toxic! Its venom is stored in an elbow patch and the loris will suck in the poison from the patch, then mix it around in its mouth before delivering a toxic bite. Scary right? But if you do not know this fact, it actually looks very cute. See here for a photo of a slow loris.
Interesting fact 6 – Flight or Fight distance
This was mentioned when we were giving food to the female Malay Civet cat. When the keeper placed the food in her cage, she kept pacing around even though she was hungry. It was only when we backed off that she came forward for her food. The keeper said that was flight distance. If I were in the cage though, it might have been fight distance. Hmm I don't really want to be involved in a cat fight though.
Interesting fact 7 – More on civet
Civet Cat Coffee is the rarest type of coffee in the world.
Oh and this female Malay Civet cat is the mother of the two male Malay Civet cats on display. These 2 males stay together with the Asian Palm civet cats which you can easily differentiate because the Malay Civet are usually on the ground while the Asian Palm Civet prefers to be on the tree. It is also this reason that the Malay Civet cage has to be closed so that the Asian Palm Civet will not bunk in with them haha.
Sidetrack, the Asian Palm Civet is famously known for its role of coffee. Both Kopi Luwak and Motit Coffee is coffee that is prepared with their faeces. These civet were fed with special diet. Guess is the same theory as the stick insect whose main diet is guava leaves and thus their faeces is nice smelling.
Conclusion
It was really fun to explore the night safari in the day. Plus the leopard trail has a wide variety of animals for me to visit and pat haha. I even caught sight of the flying squirrels cuddling in the nest. Clip (because his ear was clipped) opened his eyes the moment he heard me coming in haha. Wonder if I will ever recognise him the next time I see him though. But while I really had fun exploring the day safari, I guess it is still best the safari stays open at night.
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