Lifestyle on Hua Hin Today

Huai Sai Wildlife Breeding Center

Huai Sai Wildlife Breeding Center, a part of Huai Sai Royal Development Study Center, is located at Khao Taopoon, Sam Phraya Sub district, Cha-am, Phetchaburi. In the past, this area was proclaimed as "the royal area" by the King Rama VI, because of its fertility and various kinds of wildlife especially "Neua Sai" or "Hog deer" naturally living in large numbers. So the area was called "Huai Sai" (a place where a lot of hog deer live).

Today, the Huai Sai forest area, which used to be green, is turning brown because the natives invaded and cut down trees. With H.M. the King's intention to turn the declining area into a fertile area as before, the King had the declining forest restored and also developed wildlife breeding, especially of "Neua Sai" or "Hog deer" which is a native animal.

To get to the Huai Sai Wildlife Breeding Center, you can drive on the Cha-am - Hua Hin route, passing Phraram IV Camp and Naresuan Camp, then take a right turn and keep going for about 4 km. where you will reach the center easily. You can also use Cha-am - Pranburi Road (By-pass), passing Golf Lake View, when you reach the intersection turn left and keep going for 3 km.

Huai Sai Wildlife Breeding Center is arranged as an open zoo, with the green shades of Burmese Sal, Ma Khaa Tae, Combretaceae and Edible-seeded bamboo. In the zoo, each kind of animal is well organized, and each of them is so rare that you will not be able to see them anywhere else and the atmosphere is realistic, as if you were in a real forest.

The first animal that we saw was a "Brow - antlered Deer", which was near to extinction, gracefully standing on a yard around 10 deer and they were not fearful of the visitors at all. The center provides food for sale for feeding the deer at this point.

Moving from the "Brow - antlered Deer" cage, we then arrived at the "Hog deer" cage, an animal which is similar to a deer, but smaller and it is native to this area. Unfortunately, this animal nearly became instinct by humans, but H.M. the King's genius ensured that a number of new born hog deer were back in the forest.

After admiring the Hog deer, we moved on to explore and study trees which cover the whole area of the forest. On the way, we had an opportunity to see Kalij Pheasant, Silver Pheasant and Peafowl showing its spreading back feathers to welcome visitors, we didn't hesitate to take a picture but it was gone!!! (We weren't quick enough!!!).

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Following this, we found an array of jungle fowl; such as the Golden Pheasant, Siamese Fireback, Brahminy Kite, Mountain Hawk Eagle, Oriental Pied Hornbill, Alexandrine Parakeet, White-crested Laughingthrush and so on. Besides this, we also saw a cage of Porcupines, they were sleeping peacefully. It was a warning to visitors not to get to close to the porcupines as they might shake off their thorns.

Then, we moved to the gibbons, cage, decorated with big trees it looked the same as in the wild. We caught photos of them while they were fluently hanging and swinging as if they were gymnastics experts.

The last animals we saw were the Asiatic Black Bears which were huge in size and they looked so vicious that we didn't want to get very close. It was better to keep at a safe distance otherwise we may have been injured by their paws.

The zoo contains a lot of animals which cannot be listed all at once. We believe that if you can visit the zoo by yourself, you will gain far more knowledge on the animals and plants. This zoo is to encourage people to conserve our precious wildlife and to follow in H.M. the King's footsteps to maintain national property.