About Zoos

Newslet­ter

I am pleased to notify you, in these days before Christ­mas when most peo­ple have time to do some read­ing up, about three new zoo pub­li­ca­tions on About Zoos. Stadt Haag Zoo is not a very well-​known zoo­log­i­cal insti­tu­tion, but one that might sur­prise you in a nice way accord­ing to Karol Mišovic. Sofia Zoo has an inter­est­ing and long his­tory, while Tallinn Zoo recently opened a beau­ti­ful new polar bear exhibit and has the world’s largest col­lec­tion of moun­tain sheep and goats. Enjoy the new reviews, pic­tures and videos. Fur­ther­more, I wish you all the best for this fes­tive season.

Zoos

On 14 April 1973 Stadt Haag Zoo opened its gates to the pub­lic. It was set up as a wildlife park for native species. Although most of the Aus­trian zoos have insuf­fi­cient area avail­able, this is not the sit­u­a­tion in the Zoo of Stadt Haag, sit­u­ated near Sal­aberg Cas­tle. It spreads on 33 hectares of dis­persed wooded land­scape includ­ing sev­eral aquatic zones. These areas offer proper con­di­tions for breed­ing of most diverse types of local and exotic ani­mal species. But the zoo is faith­ful to its orig­i­nal inten­tion and as a ‘Tier­park’ does not con­cen­trate on breed­ing exotic ani­mal species despite suit­able nature and cli­mate con­di­tions, but rather offers authen­tic con­di­tions for ani­mals that are com­mon and eas­ily over­looked in other zoos – espe­cially the Euro­pean species. Here in Stadt Haag they try not to bite off more than they can chew. Read more

Tallinn Zoo is the only large zoo in Esto­nia. Hav­ing gained inde­pen­dence after World War I, cul­tural and eco­nomic devel­op­ment became para­mount in Esto­nia. This enabled the estab­lish­ment of a zoo­log­i­cal gar­den, which was founded just before WW II and was inau­gu­rated on 25 August 1939 at the edge of Kadri­org Park. When enter­ing via the west entrance this 89 ha Zoo is really open­ing up after you step out of the entrance build­ing. I see large ponds in front of me and large fenced off mead­ows to the right with Dhall’s sheep, Chi­nese bharal or blue sheep. A broad tar­mac foot­path leads towards these new enclo­sures, at least they seem rather new. As a mat­ter of fact, it turns out that the whole west­ern side of the grounds, from the new polar bear exhibit Polaar­ium to the Alpinar­ium with sheep and goat, is more mod­ern than the rest of the Zoo. Read more

Sofia Zoo’s his­tory goes way back. After the war between Rus­sia and the Turk­ish Ottoman Empire, Bul­garia gained some degree of inde­pen­dence in 1878. Ten years later Sofia Zoo was founded, which makes it the old­est zoo in the Balkans. In 1984 the Zoo was relo­cated to its cur­rent site. I enter via the west­ern entrance which is an incon­spic­u­ous small build­ing with two gates and four ticket booths. This entrance is ser­viced by sev­eral buses. I make my way around the premises start­ing at the exhibits for bears, after which more or less clock­wise I will be plough­ing through a thick layer of snow of about 20 cen­time­tres. At this early hour the Zoo is still rather empty, except for the peo­ple at the cashier desk, but it will not come as a sur­prise when the num­ber of vis­i­tors will be low today. Read more

Remark­able News

Wild tiger pop­u­la­tions in key sites could triple in a gen­er­a­tion, given opti­mal conditions

Selected News Items

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