Aso Cuddly Dominion

While the park is beautiful, the animal enclosures are absolutely awful. Many of the animals live in wretched conditions. The bears are kept in concrete pits, and their only entertainment seems to be guests throwing food at them. They constantly look up at guests expectantly. Many of the animals are conditioned in this way to behave unnaturally, approaching guests and begging for food. The rabbits are kept in tiny cages. Instead of soft bedding they have metal floors, I guess to make cleanup easier for the staff. The reptiles are kept in bare enclosures. The conditions in this zoo truly broke my heart.

Came here early in the morning for the helicopter, but stayed for the animals. Most of the animals are kind and you are allowed to pet or feed them. Food could be bought from vending machines in park including bear food. Decent cozy zoo and excellent helicopter ride of course.

Many animals to pet! The only reason is not 5 stars is because when you go to pet the bears you think you will get a little cub. They brought one really large cub, not small cuddly. It was heavy and constantly eating. It was half the size of the adults and it wasn't what you expected 🙃 still it was cool. I just think when you pay to pet the animal you should have a choice if you don't want to pet a big one and prefer a smaller one. My daughter went there excited and then she was terrified. Not ready for that. They will take photos for you but there were tears in every photo. 😢 So there was that. They have a nice selection of animals. And a show where they have birds of flight where they allow part of the audience to participate. That was fun. No photos allowed there, though, so just in memory. Lovely grounds and so nice to feed pet and interact with so many animals. Thank you for the nice experience. I recommend for families and anyone. Enjoy 😉 😘

Absolutely heartbreaking. Many of the animals didn’t have adequate space or even toys. Many of the bears were just in bare, concrete enclosures, with dirty moss floors. Many were just pacing like they were in prison. And hell, with the concrete everywhere they may as well have been in a prison. Then there’s the cockatoo who didn’t even have a cage he could move in. The parrots tied to post, of which one was shivering and another had started plucking it’s feathers- a sign of unhappiness in birds. Lastly, you can round out your visit seeing one lone capybara in an enclosure that’s like 90% water despite them being a social and mostly land based animal. Or this sad emaciated pony. Or the sun bear cubs which have been taken from their moms to roam around a tiny little box with just a literal kitchen pot of water and no toys or anything. I want to believe the employees mean well here but I feel so bad for these animals. Had I seen this pictures I never would’ve come and this place needs serious work… Maybe if they had allocated more money to building animal pens then buying a helicopter or building a pagoda garden the animals would have a better quality of life. If you love animals please don’t go here. Plain and simple, this is animal abuse. Can you imagine living on hard concrete day and night, your entire life, with nothing to keep you busy? In a tiny area with no room to run?

Nice place to pay a visit with family! Cool zoo for kids. There is a helicopter tour service here for the Aso volcano, I personally recommend to take it a tour. Personal recommend: ★ ★ ★ Family-friendly: ★ ★ ★ Date for couples: ★ ★ Parking lot: ◯ Services/meals/products/design: ★ ★ Period for stay: 2-3 hours Charge: 6000 yen Baby room/accessible toilet: ◯ Cleanness: ★ ★ the toilet is really poor and not clean