It could be argued that modern zoos are multifunctional in a way that the Victorians, (who were largely responsible for developing the concept from private collections) simply couldn’t have conceived of. Zoos conserve, protect, educate and maintain. At their most fundamental, though, zoos can be summed up thusly: they keep the animals in. Predictably, it is at this most basic of requirements that Belfast Zoo fails. Spectacularly so, in fact. Less of a zoo, more of a free range menagerie, really. The worrying thing is, their propensity to misplace the livestock is a vital part of what makes this zoo so cheerfully eccentric and worth visiting.

“Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.”

Were you going to build a zoo, I imagine you’d take account of at least some of the following things: layout, ease of access, space, and security. Thus, you’d probably build your zoo in a grid layout on a flat expanse of land with easy access to major road networks, and you’d make sure it was a reasonable distance from domestic dwellings. Being eminently sensible, and having some awareness that without the animals you’ve pretty much got no zoo, I suspect you’d invest in some kind of reinforced metal enclosures as well. All of that seems reasonably prudent, no? Well, here’s what happened with Belfast Zoo. First up, they built a zoo around a dance hall. My mother remembers going to ‘hops’ (yep, she’s that old) there and seeing the odd tiger ambling lazily past the window as she watched Pink Floyd. My mother claims never to have done any drugs. Make of that what you will. It should be pointed out that this site is positioned fairly precariously on the side of a mountain. Cavehill, to be exact. You know how the bus teeters over the edge at the end of The Italian Job? Well, that’s the kind of structural solidity that Belfast Zoo can only dream of. In terms of where it’s situated, the zoo is entirely surrounded by housing and schools. The wolf enclosure backs onto the primary school where I did my teaching practice meaning that breaktime supervision in the playground was often considerably livened up by a five year old heard shouting ‘look! Big dog! Big dog! And it’s smiling!’ Lastly, the enclosures seem to have been inspired by those provided in the Duplo zoo set that I had as a child. Every time I go I expect to see the fence around the lion enclosure held together with sellotape and baler twine.

Like many Northern Irish attractions, Belfast Zoo seduces with promises of greatness and then at the last minute, turns out to be slightly less than impressive (that’s the charitable way of phrasing it. The honest way involves use of the word ‘rubbish’). We have a long and glorious history of this. Carrickfergus Castle, for instance, implies that it will be properly castle-y and interesting. What it is, though, is some rubble. Some slippery rubble, a bit of a wall and a fecking freezing sea wind, to be precise. Similarly, the Giant’s Ring (go ahead and snigger. Everybody does) promises a Neolithic tomb with evidence of dwelling and ritual sites. And, in fairness, from the nomenclature alone, you would be well within your rights to expect a giant. Or a really tall bloke, at least. In fact, it’s just some rocks. They’re in a circle, and that, but fundamentally they are…still just rocks. Following this tradition, Belfast Zoo is the proud standard-bearer of attractions that are over-ambitious in their aspirations. That said, calling it ‘rubbish’ earlier may have been a smidge harsh. They mean well, but it’s just that I’m always quietly expecting to see a big sign that reads ‘Belfast Zoo introduces its newest exhibit! Come and see the…gerbils! Yes, never before seen these ferocious and wily creatures are in no way the little rodenty type things that Pets At Home sell by the hundred! No; they’re ferocious and wily, we tell you!’

The Great Escape

So, the zoo does have some good points. Chief amongst these is the sheer comedic regularity with which the animals go walkabout. To lose a monkey once is understandable, but twice or thrice begins to look like carelessness. To date, there have been quite a few devilishly cunning escape attempts on the part of felines, simians, and, um, rodents, that have completely outwitted the keepers in a manner that would make Steve McQueen proud. Some of the better escape attempts have included:

Famously, a Colobus monkey vaulted over the fence in 2005 and hung out in a neighbouring back garden for a while. The zoo keepers released a happily anthropomorphised statement which read, in essence: ‘he’s had a fight with his dad and he’ll come back when he’s good and ready.’ (sub-text: ‘oh, he’ll be back alright. He’s left his PS3 and his Radiohead CDs behind.’) The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a distinct lack of urgency about recapturing the errant monkey; indeed, were one not to know better, one might assume that Belfast Zoo’s gloriously devil-may-care attitude to keeping track of the wildlife had some kind of Moses-esque ‘let my animals go’ undertones. It doesn’t, though. They’re just not that good at their jobs.

Back in 1998 a tiger thought he’d take his chances on the mean streets of Belfast. Unfortunately, the Good Friday agreement didn’t recognise Panthera tigris as a political party and the police shot and killed him.

Over the last few years, Belfast Zoo have managed to reintroduce two red pandas into the wild, entirely unintentionally. The first was in 2001 with the second a year later. One suspects them of plotting a cunning escape bid in the manner of Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption. Neither of the pandas ended up married to Susan Sarandon, though, for which they’re probably enormously grateful.

In 2003 in a story that’s almost too good to be true, a band of Black Macaques broke into the control room adjoining their enclosure one night and turned off the electric fence so that they could wander round the zoo and look at all their fellow inmates.

My favourite story by far, though, is the time a couple of years ago when terrified locals in the vicinity of the zoo phoned police claiming that a huge, sandy coloured beast with a large mane was stalking the streets around Cavehill. The frightened residents cowered in their houses while police and army were mobilised and the keepers checked their animals. Eventually, a slightly shamefaced spokesperson for the locals admitted that, yes, the ‘lion’ they saw had, in fact, been a big Golden Retriever. Rest easy, Belfast!

All roads lead to Rome. Some lead to the zoo.

Aim for the Antrim Road and head towards Glengormley. My mum’s house is just off the Antrim Road, but she’s currently engaged in long-running dispute with some magpies, so she might be too distracted to make you tea and biscuits. Still, if you want to see a pensioner being comprehensively outwitted by birds, go right ahead. Anyway, just after Floral Road on the right and before you come to the motorway flyover you’ll see a big sign for the zoo pointing up the hill. Throw the car in second and once more into the breach, dear friends.

Well, now that you’re at the zoo, you have two methods of attack. You can either a) start from the bottom and work your way up, or b) haul yourself to the top of the mega-big hill and perambulate downwards via various enclosures. I’d recommend option b, as doing the climb in lots of little stages is actually more knackering. In honesty, it’s a steep walk but there are stopping off points and I managed it with an excitable pensioner:

‘Look at the bird, Fiona! It’s just sitting right there on the pavement looking at me! What kind is it? Is it exotic?’
‘It’s a pigeon, mum.’
‘Oh. Well, look at that one over there! It looks vicious! Is it a bird of prey?’
‘It’s another pigeon, mum.’

However, with a pram, pushchair or self-powered wheelchair, you are going to find it a bit of a struggle. Electric mobility scooters are available upon request, but I suspect their number is limited so it would be wise to phone ahead and book them.

"The quizzical expression of the monkey at the zoo comes from his wondering whether he is his brother's keeper, or his keeper's brother”

I'll detail some of the things you can see at the zoo. Or rather, some of the things that I saw at the zoo, as to list them all would be tedious and also because there were a few things we missed due to my mother being easily distractible.

Flamingos and other big birdy things

Yes, indeed; quite the ornithologist am I. The flamingos are identifiable by being gangly and pink. The others are just generically feathery things. Tsk. What more do you want from me? Who goes to a zoo to see the birds? Honestly.

Bear type things

There’s at least one Ciaoster* going to tell me that many things I’ve slotted into this category aren’t actually bears. However, judging by their ability to evade Belfast’s finest zoo keepers, red pandas are smarter than the average bear, so in this category they shall remain. They look nothing like pandas, being quite little and raccoony in appearance. They’re notoriously shy, but if you bide your time, wait quietly and don’t have my mother with you they will eventually put in an appearance. There’s also spectacled bear and they’re almost as cute as the red pandas. The reason I like them is not because of any zoological interest, but rather that in Berlin, three years ago, an Andean spectacled bear ‘paddled across a moat and scaled a wall before attempting to commandeer a bicycle.’ Isn’t that brilliant? The idea of a bear commandeering a pushbike tickles me no end. Paddington would be proud.

Lions and tigers, oh my

When I was there the Barbary lion pride had a couple of cubs, but I would imagine they’re fairly well grown by now. There only is one tiger, a white Bengal chap who looks a bit miserable. Both enclosures are quite distant from viewing points and are densely wooded, so you might struggle to see anything. Given the zoo’s history of escapees, though, that’s the better option than viewing them at extreme close-up range. We missed the cheetahs as they took one look at my mother and fecked off at high speed. Similarly the wolves were nowhere to be seen (gorging themselves on nearby children, no doubt).

Hopping things

The ring-tailed lemurs had escaped the day we went and were free-ranging all over the zoo. When this was pointed out to the keepers they said they’d let themselves back into their enclosure when they were hungry. The kangaroos and the wallabies we missed because my mother said, and I quote: ‘those furry bouncing things? I don’t think so. I see enough of them at home.’ I daren’t risk delving deeper into that statement with her, for fear of what I might uncover.

Swimming things

The penguins were the most unexpectedly ace things I saw all day. They live in a big pool which has an underwater viewing window. They seemed utterly fascinated by this and would follow your hand if you moved it along the window. The sea lions were calming to watch, but there was loads of litter floating in their water which no-one seemed to be doing anything about.

Monkeys

The chimpanzee enclosure is nicely spacious compared to some of the others and they’ve got loads of informational material around (for the humans, rather than the chimps, one would assume). Two of them were having a fight outside, so my mother shouted at them to ‘stop being bad monkeys’ and they did. That convinced her she was Dr Doolittle. However, her entreaties to the gorillas to ‘stop smelling of wee’ fell on deaf ears. Tamarins, langurs, marmosets, macaques, Goeldi’s monkeys and the acrobatic and prone-to-having-a-strop-and-running-away Colobus monkeys can also be seen.

Big Things

The elephant is called Tina and is in an enclosure which looks, to the untrained zoological eye, to be ridiculously small for such a huge animal. We didn’t linger there, because she looked miserable and because my mother elbowed a six year old who was trying to throw stones at Tina. Besides, the main reason that anyone comes to a zoo is, obviously, the giraffes, and Belfast Zoo have them aplenty. They’re housed with ostriches, which seems weird, and with zebras. Possibly they’re experimenting with stripes and squares. Whatever the reason, the zebras gallop around making that odd zebra noise, and the giraffes look cool and lope up to have a look at the visitors. The ostriches are just pointlessness in bird form.

There are many more animals than I’ve covered here, but lest this turn into one of those mega-long, 9,000 word Tolstoy-esque epics that are all over Ciao at present, I shall direct you towards their website, http://www.belfastzoo.co.uk/ Here you’ll find prices, opening hours and facilities, because they’re too dull to write about.

Belfast Zoo is the last publicly funded zoo in the UK and is one that struggles to make a profit every year. It is far from being state of the art, and I wish they’d make alternative arrangements for the larger animals which seem cramped. However, their intentions are good and some of the exhibits are genuinely well-planned. And, if you get lucky, there’s a very real chance that an escaped animal will follow you home (my mother was this close to persuading a lemur into her handbag).

*Sorry Babs. Next time they lose a Red Panda (and it’s only a matter of time), I’ll steal it for you.