Reviews — Zoos in Europe

18.11.2017

The Zoo has got two entrances, of which the one on the west side at the Ehi­ta­jate tee (as this road is called in Eston­ian) was most eas­i­est reach­able by pub­lic trans­port in my opin­ion. That had to do with ongo­ing road works on Pald­iski mnt where the north entrance is sit­u­ated. The west entrance is a very mod­ern build­ing com­pris­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion Cen­tre, the café Mõmmu, the children’s zoo and a gift shop, while the north entrance is await­ing its refurbishment.

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 (Pseudois nayaur szechua­nen­sis). 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. The Zoo’s setup can be typ­i­fied as spa­cious, due to the large com­pounds for hoofed ani­mals of which there are many, but also because they used a relaxed atti­tude design­ing this zoo­log­i­cal gar­den, and let much space with­out build­ings or enclo­sures. Yes, the size allows for such a design, of course, but let’s not for­get that of the 89 ha quite a few hectare on the east­ern side is just orig­i­nal forested area. It is acces­si­ble for a leisurely stroll, but with­out any ani­mal exhibit. To add to this feel­ing of spa­cious­ness there are, scat­tered over the place, a num­ber of pic­nic areas vary­ing in size, some­times with a bench and table, some­times it is just a meadow.

In the sec­tion that besides hold­ing sheep and goat orig­i­nat­ing from a moun­tain­ous habi­tat, the Alpinar­ium, a mam­malian preda­tor is housed as well, the snow leop­ard. Tallinn Zoo has kept snow leop­ards since 1964, first off­spring born in 1975. This felid has a rather small fenced off enclo­sure, when taken into account the size of the zoo grounds. Nev­er­the­less there are enough spots for the leop­ard to hide from the pub­lic due to the undu­lat­ing slop­ing hill­side they cre­ated, the boul­ders and lying tree trunks. That could be the rea­son that I don’t see it.

More or less oppo­site the snow leop­ard enclo­sure there’s a large pad­dock for Tran­scaspian urial (Ovis ori­en­talis arkal or Ovis vignei arkal), which pre­fer gen­tle moun­tain slopes and plateaus in Kaza­khstan, Turk­menistan, Uzbek­istan and north­east Iran. Adjusted to such a ter­ri­tory they move around grace­fully, unless they are as crip­ple as these two spec­i­mens in the Zoo:

The con­ser­va­tion sta­tus of wild sheep or urial is con­sid­ered Vul­ner­a­ble by the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species™. The steep decline of the num­bers of wild sheep (sub)species, includ­ing the Tran­scaspian urial, is caused by poach­ing and com­pe­ti­tion with domes­tic live­stock. So, in my opin­ion, it deserves a pro­tected breed­ing facil­i­ties in zoos, definitely.

At this side of the Zoo grounds it’s an almost end­less pre­sen­ta­tion of herds of sheep and goats, or more gen­eral cloven-​hoofed species. Not all of them endan­gered, but Tallinn Zoo’s col­lec­tion of these species is the largest in Europe, which they started to build already in the for­mer loca­tion, Kadri­org Park (see his­tory). The col­lec­tion com­prises besides the pre­vi­ously men­tioned Dhall’s sheep and Chi­nese bharal also Afgan urial, Agrim or Cre­tan wild goat (a pre­de­ces­sor of domes­tic goat), Siber­ian ibex, East Cau­casian tur (the lat­ter for which Tallinn Zoo coor­di­nates the ESB). The enclo­sures do not mimic the orig­i­nal habi­tat of these moun­tain species. In fact, all these enclo­sures remind me of a farm with large goat paddocks.

After I made my round along the exhibits in the Alpinar­ium I head for the pachy­derms. There is a huge look­out tower, closed for the win­ter period, with an enor­mous view­ing ter­race over­see­ing the out­door ele­phant pad­dock. The indoor African ele­phant enclo­sure is part of a mixed-​species build­ing. For­tu­nately, my visit is on a Sat­ur­day, because oddly enough indoor enclosures/​exhibitions are closed on Mon­days here at Tallinn Zoo. The ele­phant exhibit is old-​fashioned, small with a con­crete floor and sep­a­ra­tion boxes. The three ele­phants, 1 bull and 2 cows, are by esti­ma­tion born in 1982 or 1983 in Kruger National Park in South Africa, where they were cap­tured for a Dutch com­pany. The Ele­phant House dates back to 1989 and turns out to have a larger com­pound sur­round­ing it than I first thought. On the other side of the Ele­phant House there is an ele­vated board­walk pro­vid­ing a dif­fer­ent view and bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion of the two out­door ele­phant paddocks.

The species kept in the Ele­phant House are an extra­or­di­nary mix­ture of tax­o­nomic groups that is con­fus­ing to me: vivaria with snakes, lizards, mice and naked mole rat — so, rep­tiles and rodents from dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents (Asia, Africa, South Amer­ica); enclo­sures for meerkat, African ele­phant, pygmy hippo and black rhino (Kibetu, the male rhino calf is about five months old — born 3 June 2017); and a small enclo­sure with no veg­e­ta­tion at all, only bare tree branches, for com­mon mar­moset (Cal­lithrix jac­chus) together with hairy armadillo (Chaetophrac­tus vil­lo­sus). The vivaria are old-​fashioned and just a dis­play of boxes with species and with­out much enrich­ment. The indoor pool for the pygmy hippo is awfully small, the out­door pool is larger though. This build­ing is one of the old­est in the Zoo — per­haps only sur­passed by the mil­i­tary store­houses. A ren­o­va­tion of the Ele­phant House is sched­uled for next year, 2018. I hope this will include a refur­bish­ment as well of the cara­cal (Cara­cal cara­cal) enclo­sure that cur­rently is built adja­cently to the rear wall of the Ele­phant House and close to the black rhino out­door exhibit. It does offer lots of trunks and dif­fer­ent rest­ing areas but not much shel­ter from inquis­i­tive vis­i­tors. The enclo­sure is not too bad, but with so much space avail­able on the premises I wish any ani­mal a larger exhibit in the (near) future.

Very dis­ap­point­ing is the old and not fit-​for-​purpose adapted mil­i­tary store­house, that still holds enclo­sures for Amur tiger, rac­coon, rac­coon dog and jun­gle cat. And although there is a brand new polar bear exhibit, the Polaar­ium — opened just a month ago, they keep a polar bear that is recov­er­ing and being treated for a paw injury. This gives a good impres­sion of how the polar bears pre­vi­ously were kept — in con­di­tions that do not meet the mod­ern stan­dards for keep­ing the largest land preda­tor. Not sur­pris­ingly the injured polar bear shows repet­i­tive behav­iour. The Amur tiger enclo­sure is noth­ing more than a large cage with a floor that is partly made of con­crete and partly sandy sub­strate. Wire mesh fences all around includ­ing the roof, no shel­ter, and a height of just 3 metres, in other words: a cage. With two high level plat­forms, a scratch­ing pole and balls, there is some enrich­ment avail­able, but the tiger I see is not using any of them, it is pac­ing rest­lessly. Also the enclo­sure for Euro­pean mink, for which the Zoo is renowned because of the suc­cess­ful con­ser­va­tion efforts, is a dis­ap­point­ment. Tallinn Zoo man­age­ment is, of course, aware of the low qual­ity of the exhibits in the store­house com­plex, and they hope that all ani­mals can soon fol­low the exam­ple they have set for the polar bears with the translo­ca­tion to the Polaar­ium. But it all depends on bud­get avail­abil­ity, either via the City or State Gov­ern­ment and/​or via dona­tions by sponsors.

Oppo­site the derelict car­ni­vore build­ing a more mod­ern car­ni­vore enclo­sure is sit­u­ated, for the Amur leop­ard. It con­tains much nat­ural veg­e­ta­tion, but due to the sea­son it is not very green and pro­vides not a lot of shel­ter while the leaves are gone. There’s a small creek and sev­eral other enrich­ment fea­tures. Although the cen­tre pole that sup­ports the wire mesh net­ting is at least 10 metres high the climb­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties are lim­ited. Due to two large view­ing win­dows and the lack of veg­e­ta­tion to cover the fences the inhab­i­tants are quite exposed, but for­tu­nately they have some caves in the rear wall where they could hide if they want to.

Leav­ing the leop­ards I walk in a northerly direc­tion via a board­walk with on my left a fenced forested area with gua­naco roam­ing around and on my right a small place with a row of old-​fashioned aviaries with blue-​eared pheas­ant, reeve’s pheas­ant and com­mon raven. These aviaries are fol­lowed by two small ponds behind which sev­eral large open top enclo­sures are vis­i­ble for white-​naped crane (Antigone vipio, pre­vi­ously known as Grus vipio) and Siber­ian crane (Leucoger­anus leucoger­anus, pre­vi­ously Grus leucoger­anus), the lat­ter assessed as Crit­i­cally Endan­gered accord­ing the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species.

A stone’s throw away the Trop­i­cal House com­prises a sur­pris­ingly strange mix of species from dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents and not nec­es­sar­ily orig­i­nat­ing from trop­i­cal regions. It’s warm inside the build­ing, but not as hot and humid as you nor­mally expe­ri­ence in trop­i­cal houses in other zoos. The Trop­i­cal House con­sists of two parts. The main entrance give access to a hall with a wood chips foot­path that leads along fish tanks, croc­o­dile exhibits, an awful, small enclo­sure with a con­crete floor for three chim­panzees. While next to the chimps, pygmy mar­mosets are kept in a more suit­able envi­ron­ment with lots of veg­e­ta­tion and soil sub­strate. In sum­mary, a snap­shot of aquatic species together with two odd pri­mate species. Both these pri­mate species have out­door access. The out­door enclo­sure for the chimps being the first moated bar-​less exhibit I see here in Tallinn. The moat is water-​filled, and the enrich­ment fea­tures are of a com­mon type (trees and trunks, wooden plat­form, ropes and ham­mock). The shel­tered view­ing area is closed, but should pro­vide a good and quiet place to observe what is going on within the small troop of chimps. The other part of the Trop­i­cal House has got a row of vivaria and the odd aquar­ium con­tain­ing cich­lids on one side, while on the other side the fol­low­ing species are on dis­play: com­mon mar­moset, cotton-​top tamarin, com­mon hill myna (Grac­ula reli­giosa), crested par­tridge, blue-​and-​yellow macaw, ana­conda, emperor tamarin, meerkat and sand cat.

Mov­ing fur­ther north a build­ing with out­door exhibits for Japan­ese macaque, fish­ing cat and Asian lion appears. There is no access to the indoor enclo­sures of the build­ing nor any other option of view­ing the ani­mals when inside. So, like in many mod­ern zoos nowa­days it depends on the brave­ness of the ani­mals if you see them out­side dur­ing cold weather spells. I am not really impressed by the enclo­sures for these species, espe­cially the one for the fish­ing cat is not fit for pur­pose. There’s almost no veg­e­ta­tion and the pool in front of the view­ing win­dow is empty, so much for the ‘fish­ing’. The Japan­ese macaque are famous for their resis­tance against the cold and their pref­er­ence for hot springs. They do have a pool avail­able in the enclo­sure with con­crete walls and floor, but I am not sure if the pool is heated. The exhibit for Asian lions con­sists of two parts that can be con­nected. It has sandy sub­strate, sev­eral tree trunk lying around, a jute bag hang­ing on a chain from the ceil­ing, high level plat­forms, but no veg­e­ta­tion at all. A com­pletely bare enclo­sure with­out any hid­ing places.

On the other side of this build­ing with nightly quar­ters there are two kind of out­door enclo­sures to be seen. Old-​fashioned ones that are not fit for keep­ing any ani­mal in cap­tiv­ity and some that are just a lit­tle bit bet­ter. Until now all exhibits with ani­mals on dis­play had a decent infor­ma­tion panel, but at the very old cages there are only two plates that I can iden­tify, both men­tion­ing the Pal­las’ cat as the inhab­i­tant. I sure hope all the other old cages are out of use. The enclo­sures on this side of the build­ing that are a bit more mod­ern hold pri­mates — grivet mon­key, white-​collared mangabey and stump-​tailed macaque. These still don’t look nice with their con­crete floors, brick walls and only a few chains and ropes for enrich­ment. There is only one enclo­sure in this row of exhibits that appears to meet the require­ments of the species it houses, the one for black-​and-​white ruffed lemur. It includes veg­e­ta­tion, soil sub­strate and grass, and def­i­nitely more enrich­ment fea­tures. The grey seal basin on the short side of this build­ing is just ridiculous.

Yet another row of enclo­sures that shows there was a lack of cre­ativ­ity when design­ing them is just around the cor­ner. These enclo­sures for cloven-​hoofed ani­mals, such as Bar­bary sheep, takin, warthog, red river hog, axis deer and mou­flon, are rather uni­form of design with con­crete floors. I would sug­gest that they are not suit­able for espe­cially the takin and the deer. It is there­fore a delight that my next stop is the brand new polar bear exhibit, the Polaar­ium. It was opened just a month ago and is a great improve­ment com­pared to the bears’ old enclo­sure. It could be the dif­fer­ence in their char­ac­ters, but it is obvi­ous (see video) that one bear is relaxed and has a wait-​and-​see atti­tude, while the other is more excited. It could just be a snap­shot of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, but it could as well be the expres­sion of how they deal with their new cap­tive envi­ron­ment and adapt to it. The Polaar­ium is a grand cir­cu­lar shaped area sur­rounded by a wall that com­prises two more or less sim­i­lar large exhibits. There’s a cor­ri­dor that guides you to the cen­tre of the exhibit along sev­eral view­ing win­dows and infor­ma­tion on polar bears and cli­mate change. When in the cen­tre of the exhibit you auto­mat­i­cally arrive at an ele­vated view­ing deck for some qual­ity bar-​less obser­va­tion. When con­tin­u­ing on the foot­path it guides you to the main broad tar­mac near the pad­dock of the Père David’s deer (Ela­phu­rus david­i­anus), which is con­sid­ered Extinct in the Wild accord­ing the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species. Due to suc­cess­ful cap­tive breed­ing the pop­u­la­tion in zoos world­wide has increased since early 20^th cen­tury, and there even have been sev­eral suc­cess­ful rein­tro­duc­tions in the wild.

Then it is time to go up Hawk Moun­tain to see the Zoo’s renowned birds of prey col­lec­tion. After a short walk, slightly uphill, a series of unat­trac­tive aviaries for vul­tures and eagles appear. I clas­sify them as unat­trac­tive for two rea­sons. Firstly, the aviaries pro­vide hardly any space for the birds to express their nor­mal behav­iour — fly­ing, my com­plaint in gen­eral when it con­cerns birds in cap­tiv­ity. Sec­ondly, the aviaries are noth­ing more than bare cages fol­low­ing the design prin­ci­ple ‘less is more’. A sturdy tube frame with wire mesh and each aviary with one tree trunk and a high level plat­form. It is very func­tional, but when these birds are not allowed to per­form in a bird show every day I reckon their wel­fare is impaired. The foot­path con­tin­ues to the out­door enclo­sure for the Eurasian lynx, the species with which every­thing started for Tallinn Zoo. Although three adja­cent enclo­sures with a wire mesh roof and view­ing win­dows have been changed into one sin­gle exhibit it is still small. It has the basic enrich­ment fea­tures for a felid avail­able, i.e. trunks, scratch­ing poles and high level posts, but it could do with some veg­e­ta­tion. Close to the mini train amuse­ment for chil­dren, another series of aviaries for birds of prey is next. This time it is owls that can be admired. It is already too dark to take any pic­tures, and although I am close to the north gate to exit the Zoo, I head for the west gate, because this gives me the chance to hon­estly say I cov­ered every­thing. So, this brings me along the sin­gle Aus­tralian species they keep, the kan­ga­roo, but also species that rep­re­sent Cen­tral Asia, such as the Bac­trian red deer and Prze­wal­ski horse in their large grassy pad­dock. How­ever, much more inter­est­ing are the two mod­ern open top enclo­sure, each with a striped hyena. Through the view­ing win­dows of the enclo­sures that are sit­u­ated in a sec­tion devel­oped in 2002 I see lots of veg­e­ta­tion in an envi­ron­ment that could suit these small­est of the true hyena species. Small­est hyena, but nev­er­the­less a bite force that can splin­ter a camel’s thigh bone.

The large ponds, with water­fowl such as the pel­i­cans and swans, close to the west gate, are my final exhibit before I go and catch my bus-​ride back to the city cen­tre. They are beau­ti­ful and a per­fect end­ing to an inter­est­ing visit.

Back in the bus it starts to rain again, as it did when I trav­elled to the Zoo this morn­ing. Lucky me, because the rest of the day I have seen no drop of rain at all. While think­ing about what I have seen at Tallinn Zoo I realise that there was quite a high num­ber of vis­i­tors today con­sid­er­ing the weather con­di­tions (bad, and against all pre­dic­tions dry). And for all these peo­ple there were only a few kiosks/​cafeterias open to buy refresh­ments and snacks, in the off sea­son period only two of them are open together with the self-​service café-​restaurant Mõmmu in the west entrance build­ing. For those of you with kids in tow, there’s a children’s zoo located in the west entrance build­ing and the Zoo adven­ture park located in the nat­ural for­est is open from May to September.

Euro­pean mink conservation

The Euro­pean mink, Mustela lutre­ola, is a semi-​aquatic small car­ni­vore whose pre­ferred habi­tats are small rel­a­tively fast-​flowing rivers and rivulets in forested areas. It spends its entire life in the imme­di­ate vicin­ity of the water­way, and to be found more than 100 metres away from the ban only in extremely rare occa­sions. The diet of the Euro­pean mink con­sists mainly of amphib­ians and fish. Other impor­tant prey species are cray­fish and small mam­mals, occa­sion­ally insects and birds.

Euro­pean mink (Mustela lutre­ola) in Calviac Zoo, France.
Pho­tog­ra­phy Andrew Ives . Image is in the pub­lic domain.

The Euro­pean mink is one of the most endan­gered car­ni­vores in Europe, being pre­served in less than 5% of its for­mer range, presently sur­viv­ing as frag­mented pop­u­la­tions in a few enclaves. The dras­tic change in its num­ber and dis­tri­b­u­tion has placed the species among the most endan­gered mam­mals in Europe and in the world. Most of local and inter­na­tional list­ings have regarded it as an endan­gered species in need of action. It is assessed as Crit­i­cally Endan­gered in the IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species; the IUCN Action Plan for Small Car­ni­vores regards it as a pri­or­ity species for Europe and the world; the Bern Con­ven­tion on the Con­ser­va­tion of Euro­pean Wildlife and Nat­ural Habi­tats lists it as a species in need of strict pro­tec­tion; the Euro­pean Union Habi­tats Direc­tive has listed it in Annex II (Mem­ber States are required to des­ig­nate spe­cial areas of con­ser­va­tion) and in Annex IV (Mem­ber States are required to estab­lish a sys­tem for strict pro­tec­tion). Fur­ther­more, the Euro­pean mink is also pro­tected by national law of all range states.

In the first half of the 20^th cen­tury the Euro­pean mink was a com­mon species in Esto­nia and in most of Europe. The species has declined due to exces­sive hunt­ing and the loss and frag­men­ta­tion of habi­tats. Yet its final anni­hi­la­tion in vast regions was caused by com­pe­ti­tion with Amer­i­can mink, an escapee from fur farms. The last Euro­pean mink was last observed in the wild in Esto­nia in 1996. A cap­tive breed­ing cen­tre was estab­lished at Tallinn Zoo in the 1990s for the pur­pose of sup­port­ing the sur­vival of the species and restor­ing the wild pop­u­la­tion. This cen­tre rep­re­sents one of the world’s most impor­tant sup­port struc­tures for the restora­tion and con­ser­va­tion of the species. Tallinn Zoo is also coor­di­nat­ing the Euro­pean mink EEP. In the year 2000, the estab­lish­ment of a wild pop­u­la­tion of Euro­pean mink was ini­ti­ated on the island of Hiiu­maa — its orig­i­nal mem­bers com­ing form a cap­tive pop­u­la­tion. Hiiu­maa may soon become the only place in the world where the species per­sists in the wild.

Prob­a­bly the first footage in the world of a Euro­pean mink from a cam­era trap at the Euro­pean mink breed­ing den in Hiiu­maa Island. First images of wild born lit­ter in Hiiu­maa Island. The female was released and radio-​collared in 2013. Footage from 2014:

Con­sid­er­ing the Euro­pean mink’s highly crit­i­cal sta­tus its con­ser­va­tion can only be accom­plished by com­bin­ing the ex situ actions with in situ work in the field (habi­tat restora­tion, translo­ca­tion, Amer­i­can mink con­trol, com­mu­nity con­ser­va­tion approaches, etc)

In addi­tion to the cap­tive breed­ing cen­tre it was deemed nec­es­sary to estab­lish a con­ser­va­tion research lab­o­ra­tory in Tallinn Zoo. A lab, called ‘Lutre­ola’, where ded­i­cated sci­en­tific research could be per­formed for the pur­pose of the man­age­ment of Euro­pean mink cap­tive pop­u­la­tion as well as to estab­lish a viable pop­u­la­tion of the species on Hiiu­maa island. The Zoo ded­i­cates much resources to Euro­pean mink con­ser­va­tion and so the lab moved into a new build­ing in 2011, while a new build­ing for the cap­tive pop­u­la­tion was con­structed in 2016 – 17.

The lab col­lab­o­rates with var­i­ous uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions. Their part­ners have been, among oth­ers, the Eston­ian Uni­ver­sity of Life Sci­ences, the Tallinn Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of Tartu, the Uni­ver­sity of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine in Vienna, the Kuo­pio Uni­ver­sity, the Helsinki Uni­ver­sity and the Stock­holm Uni­ver­sity. Fur­ther­more they closely col­lab­o­rate with the “Lutre­ola Foun­da­tion” and with the IUCN Species Sur­vival Com­mis­sion (IUCN SSC) as well.

Since 2015, Lutre­ola lab focuses its research on four areas, [a] rein­tro­duc­tion biol­ogy, [b] biol­ogy and repro­duc­tion of ex situ pop­u­la­tions, [c] ani­mal wel­fare, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal enrich­ment and ani­mal train­ing meth­ods, and (d) foren­sic genet­ics analy­ses for both in situ and ex situ con­ser­va­tion issues.

(Source: Tallinn Zoo web­site; IUCN Red List of Threat­ened Species; Lutre­ola Foun­da­tion web­site; Infor­ma­tion panel in Tallinn Zoo)

Directions

direc­tions to Tallinn Zoo­log­i­cal Gardens

Tallinn Zoo is about 4.5 km to the west from the city cen­tre. You can enter the Zoo from two dif­fer­ent loca­tions, from Ehi­ta­jate tee for the West entrance or from Pald­iski mnt. for the North entrance. Pald­iski mnt. 145 is located across the road from the Rocca al Mare shop­ping cen­tre and the Audi build­ing, Ehi­ta­jate tee 150 is towards the Õis­mäe area.

Address:
Pald­iski mnt. 145 /​Ehi­ta­jate tee 150
13522
Tallinn
Estonia

pub­lic transport

The pub­lic trans­port net­work oper­ates from 6:00 to 23:00 (some routes until 24:00). If you use the Tallinn Card or Smart­card, you must val­i­date the ticket by touch­ing the card to the orange val­ida­tor located by the vehi­cle door every time you enter the vehi­cle. It’s also pos­si­ble to buy a paper ticket from the dri­ver for the price of 2 € ion cash (exact change only). More infor­ma­tion about the cards and tick­ets in Tallinn here

by bus

To the North Entrance — Pald­iski mnt. 145

To reach the North Entrance there are sev­eral buses you can take, depend­ing on your place of departure:

• From Tallinn city cen­tre (Kauba­maja) bus no. 42 (Bus stop Zoo) to Väike-​Õismäe, or you can wait another 3 stops and get out at Bus stop Karikakra for the West entrance.

• From Tallinn city cen­tre (Art Acad­emy, close to Kauba­maja) bus no. 46 (Bus stop Zoo) to Väike-​Õismäe, or you can wait another 3 stops and get out at Bus stop Karikakra for the West entrance. Bus no. 46 doesn’t run in the weekend.

• From Free­dom square (Vabaduse väl­jak) buses no. 22 and 42 (Bus stop Zoo) to Väike-​Õismäe, and bus no. 41 (Bus stop Zoo) to Landi.

• From Rail­way sta­tion (Balti jaam) buses no. 21 and 41 (Bus stop Zoo) to Landi, and bus no. 43 (Bus stop Zoo) to Väike-​Õismäe.

To the West Entrance — Ehi­ta­jate tee 150

• From Tallinn city cen­tre (Kauba­maja) bus no. 42 (Bus stop Karikakra or Nur­menuku) to Väike-​Õismäe.

• From Tallinn city cen­tre (Art Acad­emy, close to Kauba­maja) bus no. 46 (Bus stop Karikakra or Nur­menuku) to Väike-​Õismäe, but not in the weekend.

• From Rail­way sta­tion (Balti jaam) bus no. 43 (Bus stop Karikakra, Nur­menuku or Zoo)

• Buses no. 10, 12, 13, 28, 37, 45, 47 run along the Zoo as well, but from other parts of the city.

Infor­ma­tion on timeta­bles is avail­able here.

by bicy­cle

Tallinn is a small and highly com­pact city, so the eas­i­est way to get to most places, par­tic­u­larly in the Old Town and city cen­tre, is on foot. And when you want to go a lit­tle fur­ther a bicy­cle is a great option. The city is cov­ered with high qual­ity, well planned bicy­cle routes that con­nect dif­fer­ent areas of the city and sub­urbs. Click here for a map of the routes.

Sixt rent a bike self-​service bicy­cle rental makes bik­ing in Tallinn easy and stress free. Sim­ply down­load a Nextbike app for your Android phone or iPhone, unlock your selected bike and you are on your way. Sixt bicy­cles are avail­able in sev­eral loca­tions around the town and the first 30 min­utes of the ride are free.

Bicy­cle racks are avail­able at both entrances of the Zoo.

by car

With so much great pub­lic trans­port options, or healthy bicy­cle routes, going by car doesn’t seem the logic option. But if you still want or need to use your car, the park­ing is free at the North Entrance (Pald­iski mnt. 145).

Get direc­tions

Show the options

Avoid high­ways
Avoid toll roads
Km Miles

From : --  Choose source      --Tallinn Zoological Gardens or

To : --  Choose destination   --Tallinn Zoological Gardens or