The zoo's kitchen, known as the "feeding area," which was located in East Garden Ueno Zoo until last year, has successfully completed its important role of 52 years and has moved to the first floor of the new management office in West Garden.

Previously, the feeding area had separate refrigerators, freezers, and pellet storage facilities, but in the new feeding area, everything is gathered in one place, making it possible to protect the feed from getting wet in the rain or other elements.

Normally, the feeding area is out of sight of visitors, and the staff who work there support the zoo behind the scenes, but for a few days during the summer they come out in front of visitors. This is during the "Cook Zoo!?" event held during the "Midsummer Night Zoo" period.
On this day, the staff at the feeding area prepared a large variety of feed to welcome visitors. Even though we simply call it "feed," there are many different types. These include fresh grass, hay, vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, insects, pellets, and even special supplements and minerals. Ueno Zoo alone uses approximately 200 different types of feed, and in 2014, about 120 of these were displayed in the entrance to the new office. Seeing them all together is truly impressive.

As a new initiative this year, we showed a video of the kitchen area, which is normally off-limits, with commentary, on a monitor.
In addition, we displayed a collection of recipes from Ueno Zoo 's secret archives (?), and animal keeper even gave a demonstration of how to prepare the animals' food. It wasn't quite a 3-minute cooking show, but they spent about 30 minutes making food for pangolins and gorillas while explaining the process. Visitors don't usually get to see the animals actually being prepared, so we think it was a valuable opportunity for them to witness this rare sight.
This year's event was a great success, and we would like to thank everyone who came. For those who were unable to attend, please look forward to next year's event!

Photo above: Display of green grass, hay, bamboo, etc.
Photo: A row of vegetables and fruits
Photo below: Demonstration of gorilla food preparation.

[Hiroshi Fujioka, Coordinator, Ueno Ueno Zoo]

(August 29, 2014)