Did you know - Where was Singapore's first zoo? It's not at Mandai.

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http://www.relax.com.sg/relax/features/1203118/Our_forgotten_zoo.html

Mention a local zoo and the world-renowned Singapore Zoo, established in 1973, is probably the only one to come to mind.

Yet, back in the early part of the last century, a collection of animals here was already making waves around the world. It was situated on the grounds of a large family bungalow in Upper Serangoon Road in the 1920s. A wealthy animal trader of Indian descent, Mr William Lawrence Soma Basapa (1893-1943), had housed an extensive private collection of 200 animals and 2,000 birds there.

It came to be known popularly as the Ponggol Zoo.

After it began to pull in the crowds on the weekends, an entry fee was charged, and it had to move to a 10-ha plot near the Punggol seafront in 1928 to accommodate the large number of both animals and visitors.

It was later renamed the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Bird Park (not related to the current zoo). It was officially granted a licence by the now-defunct Rural Board in 1937.

Famed scientist Albert Einstein visited in 1922.

According to press reports of the time, Einstein was in Singapore to raise funds for the Hebrew University. He noted in his travel diaries that he came across "a wonderful zoological garden".

Today, little remains of this amazing, if little-known, part of Singapore's history.

In 1942, just before the Japanese invasion, the zoo was ordered by the British to close and the authorities were given just 24 hours to clear the area of birds and animals.

The dangerous varieties of animals were killed, while harmless ones were released into the forest.

The skins of some of these animals were donated to the then-Raffles Library and Museum (now the National Museum of Singapore).

Around 80 of these were moved to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research at the National University of Singapore in the 1970s. And they are still there, says the museum's collections manager Kelvin Lim.

The land, inherited by trustees after Mr W. L. S. Basapa's death in 1943, was sold to a private investor in 1948.

The site has now become part of the Punggol Promenade.