Bratislava Zoological garden

An idea of the construction of the zoo in the capital arised long before its creation, even before establishing of the officially oldest Slovak Zoo - Zoo Bojnice. The first contemplation originates from 1948 (then the zoo was planned still in another location). In the first half of the 50s, the Bratislava Zoo was already mentioned in the book "Naše zoo" (Our zoo) as a facility that will soon start building (where was no mention about Bojnice at the release of 1955). But finally the construction began only in 1959 (the zoo was opened in May 1960). So Bratislava is not the oldest zoo not only in Slovakia, but de facto is not either the first zoological institution in the territory of the current capital, because already previously a zoo-corner existed in Petržalka (although it was not part of Bratislava at that time).

The book "Naše zoo" goes that working people get a large very modern equipped zoo - "the best zoo" as if possible to read between the line... However the reality was quite different, and very sad for the zoo... The original zoo was only 9 ha (therethrough it was one of the smaller ones in the country), although it later expanded, the development was relatively slow (compared to great words in the book) and the zoo definitely did not exceed the national average. When the zoo got into a situation where a large part was enclosed by exhibitions, the first big blow came - two-thirds of exposures had to be demolished (1981 - 1985) for the construction of motorway connections. Even before the zoo recovered from this disaster, it was decided (1995) that further its part must give way to the construction of the tunnel and motorway D2. This construction began in 2003, among other things the zoo lost its current entrance and had to be closed until the new built. So the current state of the zoo doesn't say too much about its history and more than fifty-years building - due to the development of urban infrastructure it is an image only last 10-15 years.

Big cats (white tigers, lions, leopards, jaguars), bears, red pandas, badgers, meerkats, genets, hyenas, wolves, primates (orangutans, chimpanzees, gibbons, baboons, guenons, macaques, lemurs, slow Loris, tamarins, marmosets...), rhinos, hippos, giraffes, zebras, antelopes, deer, kulans, Przewalski horses, bisons, llamas, camels, kangaroos, maras, sloths, armadillos, ostriches, rheas, emus, parrots, pelicans, flamingos, ibises, pheasants, waterfowl, reptiles, fish... The new house of great apes, house of carnivores, small exotarium.