zoo OF jakarta (ragunan)

 Ragunan zoo is a kind of combination between zoo and park. It has almost 30,000 plants from 250 different kinds of. Since it is a combination between zoo and park, Ragunan Zoo is also known asRagunan Zoological Park. Ragunan Zoo was constructed based on the open zoo concept that allowed visitors to feel nearer to the animals. Besides being a recreation park, Ragunan Zoo has an important role in animal conservation through the cultivation program, and it also becomes a good place for educational and research activities. Some animals that have been successfully cultivated in Ragunan Zoo are white tiger, Sumatran tiger, orang utan, komodo, phyton, and some types of birds (i.e kakatua bird, parrot, and cassowary) as well as other kind of animals.

In 1864, when jakarta was still named as Batavia, the first zoo was open at Cikini area, Jakarta Pusat, which was named as “Planten En Dierentuin”. The zoo was managed by flora and fauna lovers association (Culturule Vereniging Planten en Dierentuin at Batavia). The land where the zoo stood was granted by Raden Saleh, a famous Indonesian painting artist, which width was about 10 hectares. Since the zoo in Cikini considered as too small and not really adequate for animal exhibition so in 1964 DKI Jakarta’s government granted a land with 30 hectares width at the south suburb area of Jakarta, later named as Ragunan Zoo. In 1966, Ragunan Zoo was officially opened by the governor of DKI Jakarta with a name of Ragunan Zoological Park. The first director of Ragunan Zoological Park was a fauna lover, named Benjamin Gaulstaun.


 Activities
Besides walking around while observing the animals behavior in Ragunan Zoological Park, visitors could see how the animals eat at Ragunan Zoological Park. Eating time of the animals has been scheduled by the management. Komodo will be feed every Wednesday at 11:00am, crocodile on Wednesday and Saturday, Cormoran everyday at 11:00am, and Hippopotamus everyday. Education and research activities conducted quite often at Ragunan Zoological by the students. The objection is to let the students love and respect flora and fauna as the richness of nature that has to be preserved.