Monday, March 10, 2008 Trader to offer city zoo 'rescue'
A PRIVATE investor who operates zoos and supplies exotic animals to the rich and famous has offered to operate the Cebu City zoo in Barangay Kalunasan.
Mayor Tomas Osmeña last week said the offer will save the City from spending for maintenance expenses and supplying and taking care of the animals.
He said that Robert Yupangco’s family is into selling Yamaha organs, but the man is also known as an animal supplier. Yupangco, he added, used to operate the Residence Inn, a restaurant with rooms and a mini-zoo with bears, lions and tigers in Barangay Busay, which closed down.
He said the Cebu City zoo was one of the reasons he was in Manila the other week.
Aside from President loyalty check, he said, he visited the Zubic Navy and Marines training camp, being a Marine reservist; a Batangas zoo; a Tagaytay vegetable refrigeration facility; and a Calamba, Laguna garbage recycling plant.
Yupangco is preparing a proposal to take over the Cebu City zoo, after giving the mayor a tour of his botanical garden and zoo in Mendez town near Tagaytay.
The Cebu City zoo has 91 animals, including 30 pigeons and 13 monkeys.
Except for a dilapidated administration structure and the animals’ cages, there is nothing much in terms of facilities in the zoo.
While the City has a yearly allocation for the animals’ food, it has no budget to develop and maintain the facilities there.
The City spends money in maintaining the facility without getting any income because it does not charge entrance fees, relying only on donations.
If the deal pushes through, the mayor said, Yupangco will not only take care of the animals, he will also improve and develop the zoo and offer it to the public for a fee, of which the City Government will have a share.
“And then maybe I’ll give him a portion of the SRP (South Road Properties) to develop a park like the botanical garden,” Osmeña added.
He also dreams of having at the SRP miniature horses so kids could go horseback-riding, as well as llamas, ostriches and “other non-violent types of animals that will just graze around.”
One of Yupangco’s employees inspected the seven-hectare zoo last Wednesday, he added. (RHM)
