The 69,000sqm Bird Paradise, featuring 3,500 birds from over 400 avian species, would be opened to the public at Singapore’s Mandai Wildlife Reserve in the second quarter of 2023.
Visitors to the new bird park would be treated to an immersive and naturalistic mixed-species habitat, where they can explore large walk-through aviaries reflecting different biomes of the world, such as dense African rainforests, South African wetlands, Southeast Asia paddy fields and Australian dry eucalypt forests.
By co-locating all of Singapore’s wildlife parks and other nature-based experiences together at the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, it is being positioned as a unique destination for nature and wildlife activities.
This will offer more potential for the Bird Paradise, which includes a state-of-the-art avian hospital and breeding facility, and Mandai Wildlife Group’s other operating parks to become leading centres of animal conservation, education and research.
Mike Barclay, Group CEO of Mandai Wildlife Group, said when the Mandai Rejuvenation Project was envisioned, Bird Paradise was aimed at exemplifying their commitment to operating open, immersive wildlife parks that placed animal welfare at the centre of what they do.
“As an organisation dedicated to protecting wildlife, I am confident that Bird Paradise will provide us with the perfect platform to further our education programmes, capacity-building initiatives and our important work to protect threatened bird species across the region,” Barclay said.
According to the park, one of the key highlights is “Heart of Africa”, where visitors pass through the “forested valleys of continental Africa” via an elevated canopy that leads them into a dense misty forest with meandering forest streams, displaying birds in their natural behaviours.
Visitors can dine amid a cascading waterfall at West Node at Bird Paradise.
At the Penguin Cove, a state-of-the-art indoor habitat would house penguins such as the Gentoo Penguin, King Penguin, Humboldt Penguin and Northern Rockhopper Penguin.
It would also have the world’s largest living genetic reserve of Hornbills under human care, with over 20 species, such as the Knobbed Hornbill and Sulawesi Hornbill.
Education programmes and features such as tactile and digital interactives, bird interactions and feeding sessions would enable visitors to engage in hands-on and interactive encounters with the birds.
“Building on Jurong Bird Park’s ex-situ and in-situ conservation efforts for globally threatened avian species, 24% of the species in Bird Paradise would be threatened species, the highest percentage listed under human care in a single zoological park,” it said.
In the meantime, Jurong Bird Park is on its final leg with the “great migration” to Bird Paradise having started three years ago.
Following its official last day of operations on Jan 3, 2023, the process of moving the avian residents to Bird Paradise will begin. With Singapore’s new bird park set to open next year, development work for the rest of the precinct is also well underway. The remaining features are set to open progressively through to 2025.