I think its original name was, I think we talked about Shika Knight. Shika is Indian word for Safari. And we realized that nobody would get it, so Night Safari. We totally believed that Singaporeans would get it and come. We totally believe that tourists would visit it. The government… Read More
And every time it came up, we heard from the cabinet secretary, we’d say, like, they can’t believe that Singaporeans would leave the comfort of their homes or their television sets at night to go to the northern parts of Monday to look at animals under lights at night. So… Read More
That’s a great idea. Was certainly a great jump in zoo design and the presentation of animals. Read More
Now, as you mentioned, this was a brand new concept. Yeah. Never been done. Read More
Why did you think that the Night Safari, if that was its original name or what was the original name, why did you think this project would have the great interest to the public?… Read More
Don’t light up moats, don’t light up back fences. We’d drive through Asia, Africa, South America. Lights on, high poles on masks. The challenge was actually… In lighting, the challenge was what happens if you have a power failure. Okay, you’ve got five standby generators around the place. The park,… Read More
So you have to have a mixture of mercury discharge. And in those days, tungsten lights, now you do LEDs, but tungsten lights. So tungstens are not 3,500 Kelvin, so you have to put color filters into… And so basically, you have a mixture of mercury discharge, which are the… Read More
And so we got him Simon Corder and we said, “Simon, come and help us light this thing up.” So he did. And we had a board, but we had a Night safari committee and we said we have all these lighting options and everybody’s got a knows something about… Read More
And so that’s about the depth you want for your exhibits. And so basically, that’s it. We already knew the basic concepts. We have long exhibits. There are about 35 meters deep. Or if it’s a drive through, it’s 70 meters across. Don’t see barriers. Just don’t light them up. Read More
Let’s do the whole bloody thing.” And Lyn said, “Okay, well, 60 a bit much. So we 40 and have 20 hectares reserved.” So that’s what we did. And he said, “You sure it’s never been done?” He said, “Yeah, I mean, never been done certainly.” So we set about… Read More
And we realized that 500 people a night is not sufficient. So we said, “Well, then we have to change the concept now. So it has to be rather than loose animals, you can cite them, you have spotlights and stuff.” We said we have to have fixed enclosures, fixed… Read More
We got all ideas, but nothing really realistic. And until we got Lyn and Lyn happened to be coming through for some consultancy. And so we sat him down and says, “Lyn, what would you do?” And he said, “Well, I’ll just expand the zoo.” So we got 60 hectares. Read More
And everybody would walk out onto this viewing platform and the tiger would be approaching a baited live goat,” which you could do in those days, you can’t do it now. They bait this live goat steak came out every night, different one every night. A tiger would come in… Read More
Yeah, sure. Okay, so one day I’m sitting at my desk and I get a call from the chief water engineer of the Public Utilities Board. And he says, “So what are you doing with that extra land?” Zoo is 28 hectares with the car parks and quarantines and stuff. Read More
He said, we need to come up with an idea. Read More
So we had a series of lunches every week with captains of industry and asked them, so if you have 60 hectares of forested land, what would you do?… Read More
Was some of your money, though, coming from literally private industry?… Read More
Yes. Companies that we give money to the zoo. Yes, yeah, we would make a few million dollars a year on adoptions and outright capital donations. Singapore is a very affluent country. Well, let’s talk about another area. During this time in 1988, public utility board comes to you, wants… Read More
Can you talk about that process?… Read More
Can you help us to make up the deficit?… Read More