The thankless task of collecting the sperm falls to Mr. Binatang's, starting his rounds at 4 a.m. "We start so early in the morning because a lot of the animals have 'morning glory' when they wake up, and it's easier to collect the sperm.
Wearing rubber gloves and carrying a cooler box filled with ice and tupperware, Mr. Binatang, 25, told us that he'd just graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in life sciences. He liked nature and animals, and thought that the Singapore Zoo would be the perfect place to work.
"I never thought I'd be giving an orang-utan a hand job every morning," he said somewhat ruefully. "And he is the worst, he expects to be kissed first. "As we approached the orang-utan enclosure, we saw the Zoo's most famous resident lying casually on his back, hands behind his head, and sporting a huge erection.
Applying the massage oil onto his gloves, he lingered outside the enclosure before entering and knelt before the orange beast. About 2 minutes' worth of squelching noises could be heard before Mr.Binatang emerged again.
Next the tiger enclosure, the big cats were sprawled lazily on the grass verge, in a somewhat half-hearted manner as he put on a fresh set of gloves and entered the enclosure. "Here, kitty, kitty,kitty..."
Moments later, he emerged with several tupperware full of viscous fluid.
"Isn't it dangerous?" we asked.
Mr. Binatang was silent for a while.
"They know I'm not there as an enemy," he finally said, a glazed, faraway look in his eyes.
Worked his way round the zoo, finished his rounds at 3 pm in the afternoon. Carrying out his duties with the tapirs, the rhinoceros, giraffe and the gorillas, amongst others. "Each animal is different," he said, removing his gloves, now speckled with traces of polar bear spunk.
"The chimpanzees always want to be hugged afterwards. The elephant is the most tricky because of the size of its thing... sometimes I have to use both my arms to tug on it."
"As you can expect it's really affecting my sex life. I can't help it. Each time my wife initiates sex, these ejaculating hippos keep floating through my mind."
How long will he stay difficult to know, but deputy assistant director Lai Jee Seow thinks it is important to continue.
"It's because the animals have gotten too used to Binatang coming over every morning to pull them off," said "Many of them now can't be bothered to engage in real sex."
by Kway Png