Komodo National Park Office — Attraction in East Nusa Tenggara

I have a few concerns about the island and how it’s being managed. First of all, we were lucky enough to eventually see wild Komodo dragons and this was a great experience. That’s about where the positives start and end.

I’ve been twice now and both times there have been one or two dragons around the entrance which are very sedentary. I have concerns that they are kept sedated and unfortunately they are being used for tourism. There are groups of people around the dragons very closely and posing for pictures. We then went on the shortest of 3 nature walks - a measly 2km when you’ve travelled across the world to see them. This upset me for a few reasons, firstly it’s mating season so chances of seeing dragons are quite slim - surely a longer walk would offer more opportunity. It would also spread the tourists out.

We were lucky enough to see a rather large dragon that was much more active. Seeing the tension of the guides as the dragon wandered around the tourists was a joke and just highlighted to me that the ones at the entrance are likely drugged. There were still incredibly large groups around the dragon unfortunately and it felt more like a zoo than a national park. The guides should NOT be encouraging tourists to stand right behind the dragons to pose for photos, it sends such a bad message that they aren’t dangerous. The guides lied about this and said “oh he’s just sleepy” but there’s no way these animals would relax with a hundred tourists around.

To add to frustration the entrance fees a generally quite high. This should be used for preservation, but there is a lot of plastic waste. I don’t know how they’re using the money, but judging by this and the behaviour of guides I think there’s a big room for improvement.

It’s a shame this is the only place to see the dragons, because they ultimately have a monopoly and no drive to change. People will continue to come. I came once 8 years ago and nothing has changed...

We came here as part of a 3d boat tour around the Komodo park. We thought we would be led through the forest to try and see some dragons but it seemed like a scheduled route everyone goes down. We were told it might be hard to spot the dragons as it is currently the mating season and they hide away.

We started walking and within 10 mins we saw a dragon eating a goat in the field. There was already another group there watching too so I’m not sure how long it had been there for (unsure if this goat was given to the dragon by the locals or actually hunted as there were other goats roaming around as well). We then went further into the forest and then ended up in this spot with 4 dragons, conveniently also right next to the souvenir shop? There were 2 smaller females further away that were moving around slowly then there was a massive male one in the centre surrounded by tour groups. This one wasn’t moving at all and everyone was taking turns getting pictures with it. The guides told us it had eaten for the day and was too full to move…. Seemed unusual when the others we saw had their heads up and were at least moving a little bit.

I’m a bit suspicious whether they A. Feed them for the day in that spot so tourists can take pictures or B. Possible sedate them so they don’t move from there. They tell you the dragons are hard to spot but I guarantee every tourists that comes there will see a dragon and also get the same picture with it.

500k entrance fee is also quite expensive considering other activities in the area (some boat trips say it is 600k). The island is full of rubbish so what is the fee going...

Pathetic show! The guides treat the tourists in a rude way. They pretend the dragons are very aggresive and dangerous, but the reality is that the dragons are drug, sick or something. There were 3 paths, short, medium and long. The guide guy told us we take the short one because we had no time to do the long one which is 3 hours. We walked around 5 mins, we arrive at a spot where there were 2 dragons totally sick, with injected drugs, they couldn't even move their legs. Their eyes showed resignation, sickness. At that point the show started... The guide guy started to collect all the smartphones and tell the tourists not to run, and be careful, and started to take photos of the dragon with the tourists at the back with the smartphones. After that, other 5 minutes coming back to the souvenirs shops... Totally horrible the way those animals are treated by the locals to make money. Do not participate and collaborate with this please! Avoid...