Zoo logic

“Over six hundred million people visit zoos worldwide every year. It’s logical that zoos should take this opportunity to educate people – teach them that animals are not objects,” owner Paulo Figueiras, 45, explains, as he takes time out from the work-in-progress that he began just over eight years ago. Since the zoo opened in November 2001, countless young have been born to many of the 140-plus resident species (including birds, mammals and reptiles) and the zoo ranks 9th in the world for its success in Marabou Stork reproduction.

“Most people want to see elephants, giraffes and lions when they go to a zoo. We don’t have any of these – and people need to understand why. Animals shouldn’t be kept just for people to see. Zoos these days have to have enrichment programmes. It is all about making things better. I think foreigners particularly seem to appreciate what we are trying to do here. They write lovely things in our visitors’ book. The fact that the animals aren’t shut off with bars, gives people the feeling that they have direct contact with them – and they love it.”

As he talks, the black and white lemurs (“which so many people mistake for pandas!”) begin clucking and chattering – and on the island next door, the gibbons begin whooping. Swinging from strategically placed ropes, you can just make out another baby, snuggling into his mother’s honey-coloured fur.

Birds and primates predominate at the zoo, although there are several other species, all in thoughtfully landscaped areas: Wallabies, Muntjac deer, Patagonian hare, meerkats, Iberian lynx, tortoises – interspersed with lakes and ponds filled with all manner of wild water birds.

“You can appreciate how this place ‘works’ when you see the number of visiting species that arrive here – and never seem to leave!”

Figueiras has lost count of the ducks, moorhens and other birds that fly in – and he’s aware that the area now has a healthy stork population (which it never had before).

“It’s all about keeping the animals happy. Some people are against zoos, but animals also need protection, and you can appreciate this when you see the number that come here and feel secure.”

We pass a flowerbed and as if on cue, a female mallard shifts self-consciously on a picture book, down-filled nest. Beside her on a wooden bench, the drake snoozes.

“Every day gives us a new challenge – a new project. You have to observe the animals all the time. See what they’re doing – or not doing. See what needs to be done. Two days ago, it was the Capuchin monkeys who made a change in their dominant male. If you are not careful, situations like this can be a problem: the monkeys will kill the old male if they can. But in this case, we didn’t have to intervene. The old male managed to jump over the water to another island – and he’s now waiting to go to another zoo.

“This is how it works. The animals are all involved in protocols – and moved from zoo to zoo when their situations change.”

Passionate about his primates, Paulo takes great care in what he calls “upgrading their furniture” on the various islands – all surrounded by just enough water to prevent them from escaping.

“They need to find different things to play with everyday. A different positioning of the ropes, a new way of presenting the food – it’s all very important.

“I don’t believe in entertaining guests with animal shows – but I do give the monkeys, particularly the Capuchins, almonds and stones, and they will spend hours placing almonds on a stone, and then cracking them with another stone.

People love to see this.”

Work on the new chimps’ compound is almost finished. It has been designed as part of a walk-through linking two sections of the zoo, and decorated by one of Figueiras’ friends, sculptor José Maria. The artist has also constructed a ‘termite castle’, to be filled regularly with worms and insects which the chimps will learn to extract with sticks and then eat.

“We really don’t know how the females will react to their new home. The incoming male will have a lot on his plate! It’s not about making babies in this case; it is about at last giving them some sort of quality of life. I am very against the use of animals in circuses. Minouche, I can see, has a terrible fear of black people. This is because it must have been black people who killed her mother and took her from the wild. She hasn’t forgotten. Just look at that expression!”

Sitting it out in their temporary ‘quarantine’ quarters, Minouche stares back at us, her expression marked by 40-years of oppression.

“These monkeys share 98 per cent of our DNA,” Paulo explains. “Sometimes I look at the way they look at us and I think - who’s really the monkey?”