Himeji Central Park Safari

Himeji Central Park, opened in 1984, is tucked among a number of small mountains just outside of Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture.  The first part of the facility is an amusement park complete with roller coasters and other thrill rides, and the second part is a “safari park” spread out over 62 hectares (153 acres) of slopes and hills. Judging by the English language brochure, the park appears to be operated by a resort company that also owns a number of hotels, golf courses, ski resorts and spa resorts in Hokkaido and the Tohoku area.  Not surprisingly then, the focus of this particular animal collection is heavily weighted towards recreation and entertainment rather than education.  As for conservation and research, if there are any such activities conducted here, it is not visible to the average visitor.

Like other “safari parks”, Himeji Central features a “Drive-through Safari” area in which visitors can either drive through in their own cars or ride the park’s bus, and a “Walking Safari” area.  The drive-through is composed of three zones: the “Fierce Animals Zone”, the “Herbivorous Animals Zone”, and the “Large Herbivorous Animals Zone”.  The “Drive-through Safari” is not really conducive to taking photographs, and it is not satisfying for visitors who want to take a good long look at each of the animals that are kept only in this part of the park.  (Tigers, lions, hippopotamus, Bactrian camel, etc.)

If you ride the park’s bus, the experience somewhat resembles a pre-programmed theme park ride.  The bus features a recorded presentation explaining the animals in each section, and the vehicle proceeds basically non-stop through each animal zone so quickly that it is a challenge to even spot where the animals are, much less focus your camera and snap a few frames.  The brochure states that the ride will take approximately 40 minutes.  The first time I visited this park on a not-so-crowded day in 2012, the ride took only 30 minutes.  The second time I visited on a very crowded last day of a 3-day weekend in 2014, the long line of cars created a traffic jam.  The bus driver might have felt pressured to keep the flow of cars moving because the ride was finished in less than 25 minutes.  Even visitors who drive their own cars do not have the liberty of parking in front of their favorite animal. A controller sitting in a watch tower uses the public address system to direct cars to keep the line moving.

Fierce Animals Zone

There are 3 sections in this zone (cheetahs, lions, and tigers) with double-gated security entries between each section.  When working properly, one or two vehicles are allowed past the first gate which then closes behind them.  Only after the first gate is closed will the second gate open to allow the cars entry into the section where the animal resides.  

The double gate on a not-so-crowded day in 2012:

The double gate on a very crowded day in 2014:

With the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I had doubts as to whether the gates were being properly closed between each set of cars.

Below is a photo of the traffic jam driving past the tiger.

Cheetah section.

The lion section. 

Tiger section.

Visitors should be forewarned that riding the park’s bus requires the purchase of an 800 yen ticket which is separate from the park entry fee, and that tickets for the limited seats on the bus are distributed on a first-come-first-served basis.  The bus departs from the amusement park area at fixed times, and since the only way to get to the “Walking Safari” area is to ride the bus, it is advisable to go straight to the bus ticket booth as soon as you enter the park.  On my 2014 visit, we entered the park only a few minutes after the gates opened at 10:00a.m., yet we were still unable to get seats for the first two safari buses that departed at 10:30a.m.  Consequently, we had to wait until the 11:30a.m. buses, and we ended up wasting almost a whole hour.  Since I could see 3 unused park buses in the parking lot, I don’t know why the park couldn’t assign an additional bus to accommodate the long line of visitors who entered the park at 10:00a.m. 

Herbivorous Animals Zone and Large Herbivorous Animals Zone

The herbivorous animals zone is basically a mixed species exhibit with deer, ostriches, sheep, and other herbivores.  The animals here appeared to be well fed and in calm disposition. In the large herbivorous animals zone, there were rhinoceroses and African elephants.

The Walking Safari

After completing the drive-through safari, visitors either park their cars or get off the bus to enjoy the “walking safari”.  This part of the facility emphasizes opportunities for visitors to get very close to, and to interact with, the resident animals.  Depending on your way of thinking, these interactions in the form of feeding, touching, and photo opportunities either make for a unique and memorable time with the animals, or are accidents waiting to happen. I’ll discuss each section of the walking safari in the order that they are usually experienced by visitors.

Child’s Farm

This section features what could be best characterized as pets and farm animals.  There were dogs, sheep, goats, ducks, owls, guinea pigs, rabbits, and even a pony ride. The park’s English language brochure specifically promotes this zone as a place “where you can touch animals”, and you can also buy feed to lure the animals closer. Next to almost all of the animals’ enclosures, there were coin-operated food dispensers or bowls of food with a money collection box. 

This machine sold wafers filled with pellets for the sheep: 200 yen.  The sheep aggressively reach for the food as you offer it in a plastic scoop.

The bowls in the below photo contain vegetables for the goats.  Visitors are asked to place 200 yen in the brown wooden box under an honor system.  And although zoo staff do not monitor these transactions, visitors dutifully comply.

You can also feed the ducks.

The sign on this cage warns that the rabbits might bite.

Patagonian cavys.

Guinea pigs.

 This Harris hawk had only about 2 meters by 2 meters by 2 meters of space.  (Not much room for flying.)

Bear Valley and Monkey Mountain

Next after the Child’s Farm is the “Bear Valley”, where there were 9 brown bears in a sunken enclosure about 70 or 80 meters long by about 25 to 30 meters wide.  Visitors could buy golf-ball sized feed pellets to throw to the bears: one ball for 50 yen, 6 balls for 300 yen, 11 balls for 500 yen, or 23 balls for 1000 yen.  

Similarly, at the monkey exhibit next door, a coin-operated machine dispensed food for the macaques.

This macaque appears to be eating a little too well.

Flying Cage

For me, the most interesting enclosure was the “Flying Cage”, an area covered with a giant net roof about 60 or 70 meters long and about 20 meters high at its tallest point.  This area featured free roaming capybaras, ring-tailed lemurs, squirrel monkeys, flamingos, scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, and a number of waterbirds. The animals in this area were quite accustomed to the presence of humans, some approaching within 1 or 2 meters of the visitors.

The capybaras especially appeared to be accustomed to human contact.

This young capybara approached the visitors, apparently anticipating that the humans would soon be carrying fresh green leaves.

A zookeeper made a short presentation about the capybaras, distributed branches and leaves to be given to them, and further encouraged the children to touch the capybaras’ fur.  At least from outward appearances, the animals didn’t seem to be disturbed by the close presence of the large number of excited children and parents, and they didn’t seem to particularly mind being touched.

However the capybaras felt, the whole situation seemed a bit out of control with adults jostling for positions to take photos of their small children squeezing in to approach the animals.  Even assuming that the capybaras might not have minded the chaotic crowd, I thought that this feeding/touching free-for-all could have, or should have, been more closely supervised.  The use of a single-file line would have allowed the zoo staff to better monitor each visitor’s contact with the animals to insure safety of the visitors and the animals.  Adoption of a minimum distance between the visitors and the animals during the presentation might have also been a good idea.

Continuing on to the second section of the Flying Cage, there was an exhibit of Meerkats.  The animals seemed to be engrossed in digging holes, and there seemed to be enough space for them to dig naturally in real dirt.  Interestingly, whenever a new group of visitors approached this exhibit, at least some of the meerkats would stop what they were doing and approach the fence to look at the people.  They seemed to be waiting for some type of food handout.

I thought it was unfortunate that there was only a small nameplate at this exhibit but no explanatory signboards.  According to the park’s brochure, the minimal number of signs in the park is to “keep it as natural as possible”, and visitors are instructed to refer to the park brochure. But since the Japanese language brochure contains only minimal information about the animals (the English language brochure was worst – it only had the animal names), and because there weren’t any zookeepers around to answer questions, it seemed like a wasted educational opportunity.

Kangaroo Square

This area contained 2 kangaroos, 1 emu, and about 8 Bennett’s wallabies.  Throughout this area, there were signs in Japanese asking visitors to stay within the marked walkways.

As can be seen in the photos below, many visitors ignored the signs to approach and even touch the animals.

Although the animals in this area, like the capybaras in the Flying Cage, seemed to be very accustomed to the close proximity of many humans, I wondered why there weren’t any zookeepers stationed in this section to monitor the visitors and animals.  Allowing small children to stand within centimeters of a full-grown kangaroo doesn’t seem like a very safe idea.

African Square

This section was basically a feeding area for the African elephants.   Almost all of the visitors who stopped here fed the elephants. 

Wafers filled with pellets were available for 200 yen.

A zookeeper later came to sell little buckets of carrots and bread for 500 yen.

Savanna Terrace

Another feeding area: small cups with a few blades of grass and carrot strips were available on an honor system basis for 200 yen.  Visitors placed the coins in a metal box decorated to look like a giraffe.  The giraffes cleaned out the contents of these cups with a single flick of the tongue.

An Obsession with White Animals

One very noticeable aspect of Himeji Central was its prominent use of white tigers and white lions to attract visitors.  A large billboard facing the JR Himeji train station features a large face of a white tiger.  The park’s home page featured many images of white tigers and white lions.

The keeping of white tigers and white lions is very controversial among zoos in the United States and in the United Kingdom.  Because of the negative aspects and health risks to the animals associated with intentionally inbreeding animals to achieve rare color-morphs like white tigers, many AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) and BIAZA (British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) member zoos do not keep or breed white tigers.  Those zoos note that the highly inbred animals are often born with physical deformities, possess DNA which is useless for the conservation of the species, and take up valuable space and resources that could be used to house normal tigers.  Generally uninformed of the issues related to white tiger/white lion inbreeding, the Japanese public loves white tigers and white lions, and a number of zoos make profitable use of that love.

This is the white tiger exhibit.  Resembling a department store display window, it appears to be about 20 meters from left to right and about 4 meters from front to back.  It has a concrete floor and a small pool about the size of a Jacuzzi.  I do not recall seeing any living plants within the exhibit. 

Nearby, visitors could feed meat chunks to the white lions.  This activity was limited to the first 30 groups (families or couples) in line, and cost 500 yen to give the lions 4 pieces of meat.  A similar feeding was conducted with the white tigers.

The photo below shows the exhibit for two white lion cubs, Raimu and Shiel, that were born July 17, 2014.

For 1000 yen, visitors could take a group photo with the white lion cubs, with up to 8 people per group.  Photo times were 11:00 to 12:00, 13:00 to 14:00, and 15:30 to 16:00, with the number of groups limited by the time or the condition of the lions. (In the United States, some states ban this type of commercial activity because of the health risks to the young animals and also because it promotes the excessive breeding of big cats that are neglected once they grow too large to be used for photo shoots.)

There were also many white tiger and white lion goods for sale closeby.

There were even soda vending machines decorated with white lions and white tigers.

Educational Efforts

In addition to the capybara explanation in the Flying Cage that was mentioned earlier, I also witnessed a demonstration featuring an owl at the Child’s Farm. I thought that the young zookeeper conducting this activity did a good job of explaining the owl’s physical features such as the special construction of its wings which allow it to fly so silently.

Also as mentioned earlier, there were few explanatory signs: this zoo appeared to be heavily skewed to recreation and entertainment.

  

Food and Souvenirs

There was an outdoor snack bar next to the Child’s Farm and also four restaurants in the amusement park.  While waiting for the 11:30a.m. bus into the safari park, we had an early lunch at the “Cooking Bear” curry restaurant.  Since it was still 10:30a.m., we were the first customers of the day.

Curry rice and a coca-cola: 1060 yen.

There was a very large souvenir shop located next to the amusement park exit.  It had many types of toys, souvenirs, and food - and many, many, white tiger/white lion-themed goods.

Getting There

The nearest train station is the JR Himeji Station, the same station where one gets off to walk to the world famous Himeji Castle.  As soon as you exit the train station, you should be able to see the bus terminal across the street.  The terminal is recognizable by the line of parked buses and by the large billboard that features the face of a white tiger. 

Inside of the bus terminal, go to the window and purchase a ticket for “Himeji Sentora-ru Pa-ku”.  The regular one-way fare to the park costs 570 yen, but you can buy a combined ticket set for 4400 yen.  This ticket set includes entrance to the park (2900 yen), the safari bus (800 yen), and the local bus round-trip fare (1140 yen), and results in a savings of 440 yen.  The bus ride from the terminal to the park takes about 30 minutes. The first bus of the morning departs the terminal at 9:30a.m., and is scheduled to arrive at Himeji Central just as the park opens at 10:00a.m.  If you drive your own car, parking costs 1000 yen and there is supposedly enough parking to accommodate 5000 cars.

(Note: Photos used in this post were taken during visits on June 2, 2012 and September 15, 2014.  The comments in this post are based on observations made on those days.  Conditions may have since changed.  Please check it out for yourself!)