The World's Largest Collection of Captive Komodo Dragons

Sometimes the coolest discoveries you make while traveling are completely unplanned. I decided to visit the Surabaya Monument, which is a giant sculpture of the two symbols of Surabaya, the shark and the crocodile.  The monument was nice and, as it turned out, it was located right next to the zoo.

I'm not a big zoo fan, but at a $1.20 entry fee, I figured that I wouldn't be losing that much to check the place out for a few minutes. It's not a great zoo by any standard, except for one thing: much to my surprise, I discovered that the Surabaya Zoo is home to the largest collection and preservation effort of Komodo Dragons in the world.  Over 150 dragons are here in the zoo. 

The Komodo dragon is an endangered species, with only about 3000 left in the wild, almost all of them on the Indonesian island of Komodo.  The Komodo dragon is threatened by loss of habitat, loss of animal species that serve as their food sources, climate change, and human intrusion, including that of tourists.  The Surabaya Zoo is engaged in an aggressive program to increase the numbers of Komodo dragons and has begun to return animals it has raised back into the wild.

If you are not familiar with the Komodo dragon, they are extraordinary creatures--the largest lizard species on the planet. Full-grown males are about 80 kilograms and can reach a length of 3 meters. The dragon has been on the planet for at least a million years, its development largely unaltered until very recent years as it has been the dominant predator on the small Indonesian islands where they live. 

They can run for short bursts at 20km an hour, they can climb trees and swim quickly too.  They have a mouth full of sharp, razor-like teeth and a forked tongue that can smell and identify prey that's up to 5 kilometers away.  They especially enjoy eating deer, goats, rodents, and monkeys, but will eat smaller dragons if no other food is present. (Now I know why the zoo keeps the younger Komodos in separate enclosures.) They can also be scavengers, as the people on the island of Komodo must put rocks over the graves of the newly-dead to prevent dragons from digging up their relatives for an afternoon snack.

I've always been fascinated by these amazing creatures as I imagined them to be something akin to Jurassic era creatures, frightening reptilian menaces.  I really found it magnificent to spend about an hour observing these creatures roaming through their enclosures and I felt like I was in an alternate place and time.  I had been considering making a trip to Komodo so that I could see these creatures in person, but it is a bit of a hassle and expense to go there and now that I've learned that visitors really aren't helping the cause of the Komodo Dragon, I am satisfied to have experienced them at the Surabaya Zoo and don't see the need to travel to visit them.  I am ambivalent about zoos and keeping animals in captivity, but in this case, I think that the Surabaya Zoo's efforts to preserve the dragon outweigh the negatives of captivity. 

So, you never know what you might find as you wander around during your travels.  You might end up meeting a dragon!


















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