The Two Headed Turtle and Fishing for Sharks

I’ve mentioned Dusit zoo before as a great place to take children in Bangkok, we went for a return visit yesterday.

One of the great things about the zoo is that it’s not purely a tourist attraction, it’s mostly there for the locals, we only saw one or two other western families there yesterday. Foreigners still have to pay extra, but it’s only 100 Baht for adults, about $4. Compare that with Bangkok’s aquarium, that will set you back around $100 for family admission.

The animals’ enclosures and conditions aren’t too bad, as zoos go, and the reptile house is fabulous, they have a huge collection. I’m a zoologist by training, my love of animals, and of the science, comes from visiting zoos and aquaria as a child, I don’t have a problem with zoos on the whole, I realise some people do.

Two slightly out-of-the-ordinary, if not totally bizarre, attractions to share with you today, the two headed turtle and fishing for sharks.

The Two Headed Turtle

The turtle sits in his tank outside the tiny aquarium, we saw him two years ago, he’s grown a lot. There is no way he’d survive in the wild, you can see that the two front legs are independently controlled, the two heads don’t think as one, they eat and come up for air separately.

Fishing for Sharks

For an extra 10 Baht you can rent a fishing rod with a piece of fish tied to the line, no hook, no sharks are hurt, you can literally fish for sharks, baby ones, loads of them. The kids loved it, we had a chat about whether or not it was a nice thing to do and decided the sharks were better off in the zoo than in a bowl of shark fin soup ( I hate to think what happens to them when they get bigger), so I let them try.

We didn’t see any elephants this time, there seems to be some new elephant show there in the evenings, I really don’t like that sort of thing so we stayed away. You can still bottle feed the fish and the wild monitor lizards in the lake were amazing, huge things! There is plenty of room for the kids to run around and a great little playground, so if you’re in Bangkok with children and get templed-out, give it a go.