Capybara ‘friendly’ with ‘Oyen’ jumps the number of visitors to Zoo Negara
Oyen was lucky to not only have a source of food but also shelter and friendship with the capybara.
KUALA LUMPUR: The afternoon weather was hot and humid. Several Zoo Negara visitors can be seen walking leisurely, before pausing to see a group of capybaras munching on shoots and leaves on a wooden board, located about two meters off the ground.
Capybara is the world’s largest rodent species, so this mammal is called a giant rodent.
The zoo’s capybara enclosure is spacious, slightly lower than the walkway, with the back planted with trees while the front is a stone wall.
In the middle is a wooden board, where the animals enjoy their meals, while at the bottom there is a shelter for the capybara to shelter from the heat and rain.
The zoo also made a large and shallow pool for capybaras to soak in to cool off.
Just then a woman’s voice was heard staring intently into the capybara’s enclosure shouting, “Oh, look, there’s a cat,” the woman yelled at her family, who began to watch over the woman while taking out their cell phones.
The target of the phone’s camera lens is of course the bulus.
The cat that the woman called was orange, sitting on the couch, ignoring anyone, contentedly eating his tuna lunch in a blue bowl.
The writer was informed that the giant cat and mouse had become like roommates since the last two or three years. The familiarity of these animals is increasingly attracting visitors to Zoo Negara, which suffered huge losses when forced to temporarily close operations due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zoo workers, however, are not sure when the cat, called Oyen by workers and visitors, moved in and lived with the group of capybaras.
Oyen was seen in the capybara enclosure at Zoo Negara.
All they knew was that when the zoo was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oyen would show up during animal feeding time.
It seems that the herbivorous capybara does not care at all about the presence of the meat-eating bulus.
“The first time we met Oyen, we saw that the cat was not playing well with the capybara. Oyen would come to eat once,” said Mohd Taufik Yazidbustami, senior zookeeper at Zoo Negara to Bernama .
“At that time we also put bread, and the cat ate that bread,” he added.
The zoo usually does not encourage animals to interact with wild animals because it can harm them.
Animal welfare needs to have five freedoms which are freedom from hunger and thirst; from discomfort; from pain, from injury and disease; freedom to express normal behavior and from fear and stress.
So far, the cat and capybara seem healthy and happy and do not show any stress, according to the Vice President of the National Zoo Rosly @ Rahmat Ahmat Lana.
He added that his party constantly monitors the two species to ensure the health of both is preserved.
Zoo workers decided to allow the friendship between the cat and the capybara. Oyen has also started to be given his own food and not just bread.
BE GOOD FRIENDS
COVID-19 forged a friendship between Oyen and the capybara and brought luck to the National Zoo. According to zoo workers, the cat may be one of the pets dumped in the nearby area.
The National Zoo is said to be a popular place for cats to be dumped, even before the pandemic.
When COVID-19 hit, many lost their jobs and were unable to protect their pets.
Zoo Negara, with an operating cost of around RM1 million per month, also received a heavy blow by being burdened with a financial crisis in the months after Malaysia was hit by the pandemic.
The number of visitors to the zoo also dropped to zero even though the Movement Control Order (MCO) was enforced, resulting in the Zoo Negara’s financial resources dwindling.
According to Rosly, Oyen was lucky because he not only got a source of food but also shelter and friendship with the capybara.
“Oyen looked happy. Suddenly visitors saw Oyen eating with a capybara, this is the special thing. In the blink of an eye Oyen became so popular,” he said.
The zoo saw the friendship between two animals of different species as an attraction and used social media to promote this.
Videos of Oyen and the capybara appear, among them on Rosly’s Tik Tok account and Zoo Negara’s official Tik Tok account, alongside visitors’ Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Videos showing Oyen and the capybara exploded virally on Tik Tok and Twitter several times, after the zoo reopened in September 2021. Among the videos that went viral were those showing Oyen sleeping or hugging a capybara.
Part of the reason for the friendship between these two animals is because of the nature of the capybara. Native to northern and central South America, capybaras are highly social animals, and get along well with many animals, including dogs and ducks.
While Oyen, according to common belief, orange cats are friendly but stuffy.
According to Rosly, Oyen’s presence makes the capybara enclosure one of the most popular animal places in the zoo.
He told Bernama that the zoo is thinking of adding Oyen’s name to the capybara sign in front of the enclosure.
“The majority of zoo visitors are aware of this. Many come to take pictures of Oyen and capybara but not all manage to take the picture. If they are lucky and come at lunch time, they can take a picture,” he said.
Food is given twice a day at 9:30 am and 2:30 pm.
Some of the visitors that Bernama met while visiting Zoo Negara did not seem to know about Oyen’s existence.
After being told of course everyone was excited to know the cat lived with the capybara.
“It’s true that we don’t know about the cat. We came to see the capybara and the cat is a bonus. I hope this capybara is easy to make friends with, otherwise the cat must have run away, right?” said Seth Deister, a tourist from Seattle, Washington, United States.
IMPORTANCE OF THE ZOO
According to Rosly, the situation at Zoo Negara is now getting better since the gloomy period of MCO, when the zoo was at risk of being closed.
At that time, the zoo only had an emergency fund that could last for three months only to care for and feed the animals in the zoo.
Visitor numbers plummeted in 2020 and 2021 due to multiple curfews, to around 182,000 per year.
In 2022, when the pandemic restrictions are eased, the number of visitors increases to more than 430,000 people and surpasses the number of about 350,000 visitors, before the pandemic.
Donations from the general public and corporate companies cover any shortfall during the period.
The Malaysian government is contributing almost RM10 million to the National Zoo between 2018 and 2022.
Rosly told Bernama , the Zoo’s financial situation is now balanced between cost and profit and they need to increase the amount of profit to prepare for any emergency.
“We want more people to come to the zoo because we have to pay for the exhibits as well as the maintenance costs of the zoo and the animals,” he added.
At the same time, the zoo is not without controversy. Animal rights activists believe animals deserve freedom and live in the wild.
They claim that the zoo exploits and abuses animals by hiding behind educational programs.
Animal rights activists also argue that zoos are no longer useful because documentaries and TV programs can educate children to appreciate nature and wildlife, better.
Former President of the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS), Prof Dr Ahmad Ismail, however, disagreed with the view.
He emphasized that zoos are important not only to educate and introduce animals to the public, especially endangered animals but also to implement conservation projects.
“We need to conserve tapirs, for example. We also need to conserve tigers. (People) don’t know about tigers, tapirs and even turtles. The level of sensitivity and concern about wildlife in this country is still low, that’s why we still face conflict between humans and elephants and tigers,” he said.
However, he is not sure if cats living with capybaras is a good idea, as the interaction of the two species may change the capybara’s normal behavior.
“In enclosures, it may be cute to see cats and capybaras but for some nature lovers, they don’t like that situation. They want to see animals behave as they would in their natural environment,” he said.
He added that using the friendship between the cat and the capybara may be beneficial in the long term, if it can attract more visitors for the Zoo Negara’s financial needs.
