Manila Zoo sets up urban garden to feed animals

The administration of the Manila Zoo in Malate has come up with a self-sustaining way to feed its herbivore or plant-eating animals amid the uncertain times brought about by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

- MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB

The zoo management converted an idle 200-square meter lot previously used for horseback riding into an urban garden.

With the zoo shuttered to the public since January last year, compounded by a community quarantine that shut down public parks and hampered supply deliveries, the zoo management had to come up with a way to grow its own food for its animals and personnel.

According to Manila Zoo’s officer-in-charge Alipio Morabe Jr., the seedlings were provided by the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Plant Industry and uses the zoo animals’ manure as fertilizer.

They started the project last April, and this month their labors bore fruit, with a bountiful harvest that supplied food for the herbivores – species of birds, carabao or water buffaloes, rabbits, zebras and elephants.