Wildlife and Nature Reserves in Bali
Part of the Bali travel guide — see every topic in All Bali Guides.
Bali's wildlife story is mostly about the west. West Bali National Park covers about 190 square kilometres of dry monsoon forest, mangrove and coral reef at the far end of the island, and is the last home of the Bali starling — a snow-white bird with a blue eye mask that fell to fewer than ten wild individuals in the early 2000s and has been clawed back through captive breeding on Menjangan island. Elsewhere the island's animal attractions require some care, because several of the best-known ones are not what they present themselves as.
West Bali National Park
The park is a three-hour drive from the south and sees a fraction of Bali's visitors. Guided birdwatching walks leave early and reliably turn up hornbills, kingfishers, bee-eaters and, with luck and a good guide, the Bali starling itself. The Prapat Agung peninsula has savanna-like dry forest that looks nothing like the rest of the island. Offshore, Menjangan island has the clearest diving in Bali and a resident population of Java rusa deer that swim between the islets. Entry is around 200,000 rupiah for foreign visitors plus a guide fee; it pairs naturally with a night at Pemuteran.
Marine life and turtles
Green and hawksbill turtles nest on Bali's quieter beaches and are protected. The Turtle Conservation and Education Centre on Serangan island near Sanur is a legitimate operation running hatchery and release programmes; so is the reef-restoration project at Pemuteran in the north-west, where a biorock structure has regrown coral over two decades and you can snorkel it. Be sceptical of anything on Kuta or Tanjung Benoa that offers turtle handling — the "turtle island" boat trips have a long history of keeping animals in tanks for photographs, and paying for it keeps it going.
Monkeys, and the etiquette of them
The Sacred Monkey Forest in Ubud holds around a thousand long-tailed macaques across a genuinely beautiful patch of forest, and the Uluwatu cliffs have their own troop. They are wild, habituated and extremely quick. Sunglasses, phones, hats, water bottles and anything shiny will be taken, and at Uluwatu the monkeys have learned to trade — they will hold your sunglasses until a staff member buys them back with fruit. Do not carry food, do not make eye contact, and do not try to retrieve anything yourself. Bites happen and require a rabies assessment.
Choosing responsibly
Bali has a spectrum from real conservation to straightforward exhibition. Bali Safari and Bali Zoo are conventional zoos with elephant and animal encounters; the Bali Elephant Camp operations offer rides. Riding elephants is broadly rejected by welfare organisations, and a growing number of Bali operators have moved to observation-only models — those are the ones worth your money. The simple tests: can the animals move away from visitors, is there any breeding or release programme, and does the operator publish where the animals came from. Anything built around holding an animal for a photograph fails all three.
Wildlife and Nature Reserves at a glance
| West Bali National Park | ~190 km²; entry ~IDR 200,000 plus guide |
|---|---|
| Flagship species | Bali starling — recovered from <10 wild birds |
| Best diving | Menjangan island, inside the park |
| Reef restoration | Pemuteran biorock project, snorkelable |
| Monkeys | Ubud Monkey Forest, Uluwatu — secure everything |
| Avoid | Elephant rides and turtle-handling boat trips |