Suriname has a wide variety of animals, birds and monkeys in particular. The only zoo in this country has been a bone of contention for some years now. It continues to help animals, but one glance reveals the obvious: it has hardly been maintained since it was built in the previous century, or at least since it was renovated and reopened in 2006. Many exhibitions are empty. One jaguar who looked at me very sadly was the sole large predator left. The owls were reasonably happy. The cages for the swamp otter and birds of prey were clearly much too small. One of the donkeys was hurt and its skin indicated that it was falling into disrepair otherwise. The parrots were beautiful, as were the bigger open air monkey exhibitions. As the zoo is close to the nature reserve “cultuurtuin”, some multicoloured parrots roamed the zoo’s trees freely as their natural habitat. So did a bunch of small white and black monkeys.
