Ardent Botanical and Zoological Park

Full Day Habal-Habal Tour Around Camiguin

Next Stop: Ardent Botanical and Zoological Park

After our revitalizing dip in Hibok-Hibok’s nature springs, we walked a few meters up to the Ardent Botanical and Zoological Park in Camiguin Island.

A government-run park, like its neighboring springs resort, the Ardent Botanical and Zoological Park is a huge landscape manicured with a variety of tropical plants and many kinds of animals to showcase the diverse wealth of Mother Nature.

The park offers a path, crafted to present its visitors a progression of natural sceneries, from flowers to trees and butterflies to animals, inspiring wonder, overwhelming surprise or even aghast.

From the main entrance of the garden, visitors are subject to an entrance fee of 30php per person, while young children are free of charge.

This is followed with a sloping garden that seems relatively new with young and budding plants scattered around.  Next is a small area for raising colorful orchids.

Adjacent is a room dedicated to show visitors the development of butterflies, where a nice lady explains in her native dialect how butterflies evolve from an egg, as shown in a bowl, to a caterpillar presented inside a basket with leaves, to a cocoon bred in a glass cage and to a colorful butterfly.

Afterward, visitors are led to a secured garden where a big gathering of colorful butterflies are sustained with a variety of flowering shrubs. Here one could observe the dynamics of male and female butterflies from courtship to mating.

Next to the butterfly garden is a path that leads to the zoological garden.

Animals in Captivity

The zoological park is set in a wild forest, enriched with old towering trees and an amalgam of tropical shrubs.

Dispersed around this remarkable forest are precious animals that have been captured and caged for human perusal.

There are monkeys, whose notorious naughtiness has been toned down in a cage, impaled from their playful swinging. The same goes for rabbits, whose girth almost reached the edges of its small pen.

There is also a domestic sheep, ovis aries, alone in its enclosed space; a snake, turtles and fishes in their ponds, geese, ducks and peacocks, and more.

In the center is an aviary that houses a barn owl, a falcon and other bird species, all hanging onto the railing and sporadically flying, whilst holding a stance that spoke of a wistful longing to be out in the open and fly freely again.

This controlled display of wild animals in their unnatural habitat is obviously against their real nature, rather a soft way of maltreatment or wrong treatment, as they are held in small confinements against their will. They are meant to be free in the woods hunting for food and frolicking with their peers while sending out pleasing sounds of chirps and quacks to everyone passing their way.

I hope that these precious beings are released. They have the right to live freely like we do, and propagate more of their species to give a beautiful balance into this world.

Cebu Pacific Air offers direct flights from Cebu to Camiguin. For bookings and inquiries, guests can visit www.cebupacificair.com or call (+632)7020-888 or (+6332)230-8888. The latest seat sales can be found on CEB’s official Facebook and Twitter pages. Guests may also download the Cebu Pacific official mobile app on the App Store and Google Play.