After avoiding this place for years on accounts of animal abuse, we decided to go ahead and find out for ourselves how bad it is at ZooMania Butterfly Farm Cameron Highlands.
What we saw surprised us. Realistically speaking, it was not as bad as we expected.
If you want to know more, keep on reading. We’ve also got a lot of photos to show you.
Entrance Fees
Adults pay RM15 to enter this mini zoo.
We understand that many (especially big families with children) might think this is great value since there are a great variety of animals to see here.
But coming from the perspective of the animals, it doesn’t seem nearly enough to upkeep so many of them. We shudder to think what happens if an animal falls sick here. And we have a strong suspicious that they won’t call over a vet to see them.
Furthermore, we didn’t see any staff attending to the animals while we were visiting but the food bowls are all filled.
Even more disturbing is how the owner of this zoo managed to get their more exotic animals. Aren’t there supposed to be strict permits on keeping such animals in possession?
What To See Here
Butterflies & Birds
I mean, there’s nothing stopping anyone from heading to the fish section and working your way backwards through the zoo. But the first section that most visitors will see first (ourselves, no exception) is the butterfly enclosure.
It has a high ceiling and a tidy landscape (except for one corner with abandoned glass tanks). There are some birds roaming here like guineafowl and peacocks.
At first glance, it looks like there are no butterflies in here, but when your eyes adjust to the foliage and lighting, you’ll be able to see more and more of them.
We saw several specimens of Rajah Brooke’s birdwing.
Expect to see some dead and dying butterflies. Many butterflies don’t live past a week. What’s unfortunate is that there is no staff here to stop children from mishandling the butterflies.
Reptiles
To my knowledge, reptiles are not easy to care for, but the reptile tanks were not nearly as bad as the mammal enclosures – they usually had a roommate, live grubs to eat, sun lamps, and several perches.
Maybe my expectations were set low, but this was a lot better than what I imagined it was going to be like.
Sure, they don’t have the right kind of plants in their enclosures, but are the occupants of the tanks really going to be bothered by that if plants are not part of their diets anyways?
Waterfowl
The next section after the butterfly enclosure and reptile tanks is a small pond setup. There are quite a few ducks and other waterfowl free roaming here.
Beside them is a pen for a pair of turkeys. They looked content as far as we can tell. Many of the ducks were dozing in the afternoon. We like that there are no tiny metal cages for any of the birds in this zoo.
Mammals
This is where our experience in this zoo took a downturn dive. Aside from the somewhat decent guinea pig colony beside the waterfowl and the “acceptable” wallaby, sheep, and rabbit enclosure, there were some shocking conditions for many of the animals in this section.
We saw two completely different species kept together – a baby racoon and a prairie dog? Not too sure. We couldn’t think of a reason behind this odd paring other than the fact that the racoon enclosure was currently in construction.
There were two other prairie dogs (not too sure if that’s what they were) in their own cage, and they looked miserable (one of them had patches of missing fur).
The adult racoon looked free to roam around. Some people were feeding it but to us, it looked like it was close to having a heatstroke (constantly panting).
That’s not the worst of it though. As you get closer to the end of the zoo, we saw a chipmunk tank (probably not big enough for all their energy) and a horrific meerkat enclosure. It only had three occupants and not nearly enough sand for them to build their complex underground tunnels.
We couldn’t wait to leave after that. There were just two enclosures after the meerkats. These seemed alright albeit too small – where did they even get fennec foxes? As for the Bengal cats, we assume these are the domestic sort.
Fish
This is the final section of the zoo. It’s actually not that bad considering the inadequacy of the former section.
There are stone toads and three horned frogs in this section, and they had pretty big enclosures for their size.
Another unusual specimen that we saw here was a big fish from Peru.
We didn’t see any signs of dead or dying fish while we were here. Many species here can be obtained in a local aquarium. Like angel fish.
Impressively, they had a huge tank for river fish in this section.
Facilities
A small visitors car park is behind the ticket counter. There are toilets here. Next to the ticket counter is a small shop and café as well.
There is a steamboat restaurant (Jin Jin Steamboat) on the same property. The animals are kept separate from it.
Ice cream is sold inside the zoo by the chinchilla enclosure. Along with food pellets that you can buy to feed the sheep and other animals.
Conclusion
Our final thoughts on this place? ZooMania Butterfly Farm Cameron Highlands has improved a lot in terms of their animal welfare.
Is it a perfect haven for its animal residents? No, but most of the animals at least here have their basic needs met.
If they want to improve further, we’d love to see them let go of their more exotic mammals. We think they need more staff to man the place and to stop visitors from abusing the animals too. Even if they must increase the cost of the entrance fees.
Will you be visiting this place? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Butterfly Garden
Right next door to ZooMania Butterfly Farm Cameron Highlands is the Cameron Butterfly Garden. And you guessed it, it’s very similar to the former. We find that the animals here are lacking space since most of the space has gone to landscaping.
Agro Market Cameron Highlands
This place may not have a butterfly garden, but we think they have the nicest aviary. It’s huge and there are a great variety of birds to see. There are other animals in this park too, but thankfully no exotic species.
Agro Technology Park MARDI Cameron Highlands
The butterfly section at Agro Technology Park MARDI Cameron Highlands may be small, but it is beautifully done, nonetheless. We can’t say the same for the rest of this large park though (they have a horrid mini zoo), but that doesn’t stop many visitors from coming since entry fees are affordable.
