Hsinchu Zoo Audio Guide

Hsinchu Zoo: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Hsinchu Zoo

   Welcome to Hsinchu Zoo, known in Chinese as 新竹市立動物園. It sits in the East District of Hsinchu City, at number 66 on Shipin Road, and it is tucked inside Hsinchu Park, right in the middle of the city. Here, traffic hums just beyond the gates, and then you step into a patch of green where hippos, tigers and orangutans live. The zoo covers about 2.7 hectares, which is small by modern zoo standards. What it lacks in size it makes up for in age. It was founded in 1936, and it is the oldest zoo in Taiwan still standing on its original site. The old gate, the fountain and the fish owl enclosure still look the way they did when first built. Over the next few stops, we will look at how a small collection of cages in a Japanese-era park grew into a beloved destination, why its elephant gate matters, and how a major rebuild reshaped what it means to visit a zoo. Settle in and let's begin.

2. 02

   From Park Cages to Taiwan's Oldest Zoo

   The story starts with a park. During the Japanese colonial period, Hsinchu carried out a six-year urban improvement plan, and in its final year a new park was laid out on the southeastern edge of the city, at the foot of Zhentou Mountain. That became Hsinchu Park, the oldest park in the city, and it already had animal enclosures where townspeople could come and look. In those early days, the animals were a side attraction attached to the children's play area. Then came a gift that changed the mood. A patriotic overseas Chinese man from Hsinchu, who was living in Osaka, Japan, sent the city a young Asiatic black bear cub born in Hokkaido. Its nickname was Number One. Suddenly people were not just peering at monkeys behind bars, and the gift set off a wave of animal donations. Over the years, donors gave elephants, mandarin ducks, lions and crocodiles. By 1960 the zoo was expanding its enclosures, and it completed Taiwan's first open-air natural enclosure for big predators. Tickets began to be sold that year, and a separate children's playground opened the following year, which let the zoo stand on its own. In 1971 the provincial government approved it as an independent institution, and it became one of northern Taiwan's major attractions.

3. 03

   The Elephant Gate and the Owl Called Big Ears

   Keep an eye out for the elephant gate, one of the zoo's best-loved landmarks. It has been standing since 1949, and the old entrance has stone-wash pillars combined with the ticket window, decorated with a concrete elephant and crouching lions. A Japanese designer modeled it on the gate of the Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg, Germany. During the recent rebuild, it was not removed but restored to look closer to its original form. Then there is the elephant statue with an owl perched on its trunk, which tells a quieter story. More than 20 years ago, the zoo took in a Blakiston's fish owl that had been injured when it flew into the glass of the train station. Staff named it Big Ears. It lived in a semicircular cage, and it often landed on the tusks of the elephant statue inside, as if waiting for another chance to fly into the open sky. When the zoo was reborn, that cage was taken apart. The preserved structure now serves as a place for life education, where you can step inside and feel, in a real space, how precious life and freedom are.

4. 04

   Rebuilt Without Cages: The Zoo Reborn

   From 2002 the zoo began renovating its aging cages, shifting toward open spaces and habitat-style enclosures in place of narrow cages. Then, on 29 May 2017, it closed completely so that it could be rebuilt together with Hsinchu Park. It reopened on 28 December 2019, and the opening ceremony was attended by President Tsai Ing-wen, who toured the grounds with the mayor of the time, Lin Chih-chien. The new zoo runs on three core ideas: animal welfare, education, and recreation. In practice that means opening up the cages, giving animals more room, restoring something of their natural habitats, balanced diets and a proper medical system. It flips the old idea of animals being looked at inside a cage. Visitors responded in force. More than 20,000 people came on the first day, and about 370,000 came in the first month, a record. The collection as of 2020 was roughly 50 species and 250 animals, including hippos, Malayan sun bears, orangutans, Bengal tigers, gibbons, flamingos and Taiwan macaques.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you wander on, remember that this zoo has already had a long career. It was a favorite outing through the 1950s and 1960s, and it drew about 300,000 visitors in an average year. In 1979 it set a record of 22,000 people in a single day. Many families in Hsinchu, and in nearby Taoyuan and Taichung, grew up with memories of coming here. As you explore, look for the traces of earlier chapters. There is a stone lantern and a torii gate from the Japanese-era Hsinchu Shrine, and a memorial monument to the Osaka donor who gave so many animals to the zoo. Notice too how the zoo works with local governments to take in and treat injured protected wildlife, with the aim of returning animals to the mountains, and how it favors exchanging animals with other zoos over buying wild ones. Since habitat improvement work happens from time to time, it is worth checking the zoo's latest notices before you plan your visit. Then ask yourself which of these layers you want to find first: the old gate, the shrine relics, or the new open habitats.