The Best in Europe!

The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) honoured the Zagreb Zoo with the award for an outstanding contribution to the protection of European carnivores. A big campaign, named “EAZA European Carnivore Campaign” encompassed 150 participating Zoos across Europe and Zagreb’s campaign was proclaimed the best in 2008 and 2009. The award is all the more significant as it was won in the most important category of the campaign: raising public awareness about the necessity to protect European carnivores.

Croatia is one of the rare countries that boasts all three, large European carnivores; the Wolf, the Eurasian Lynx, and the Bear. Based on their rich experience, the employees of the Zagreb Zoo devised an interesting and educational campaign. They organized an array of educational workshops and lectures, and carried out numerous surveys among citizens and high-school students. Apart from these, and various other activities, a large interactive exhibition, “We live together”, was held at the Zoo, which welcomed a great number of visitors on a daily basis.

Throughout its 84 years, the Zagreb Zoo has entertained and educated numerous generations of youngsters, whose education is one of its special missions. In addition to looking after the wellbeing of the animals and keeping them safe and comfortable in their habitats, the Zoo staff is always busy organizing different interesting events, introducing new species to the zoo, as well as arranging zoo displays to reflect the biological diversity between continents; Africa, Western-American prairie, Asia, etc. The Zoo has launched interesting night tours of the animal habitats, organized picnic events with stuffed teddy bears, and it also marks important international days tied to nature and animals, such as Nature Protection Day, the World Turtle Day, the European Bat Night, etc.