Belgrade Zoo

Belgrade Zoo
White lion, zoo's big attraction
44°49′33″N 20°27′12″E
Date opened	12 July 1936
Location	Kalemegdan Park, Belgrade, Serbia
Land area	7 hectares (17 acres)
No. of animals	+1700
No. of species	+150
Annual visitors	+420,000 (2018)
Director	Srboljub Aleksić
Website	www.beozoovrt.rs

Beo zoo vrt (Serbian Cyrillic: Бео зоо врт), also known as Vrt dobre nade (Garden of good hope) is a zoo located in Kalemegdan Park, downtown of Belgrade, Serbia. Founded on July 12, 1936, it is considered to be one of the oldest public zoos in southeastern Europe. The zoo covers 7 hectares (17 acres) and it houses a collection of approximately 150 animal species, with close to 2,000 individuals, making it the largest collection in Serbia. It's also recognized as one of the most visited tourist attractions in Belgrade.

Belgrade zoo officially applied for EAZA membership in 2017.

History

During the Austrian occupation of northern Serbia from 1717 to 1739, they conducted extensive project of rebuilding Belgrade, turning the city into Westernized European, baroque-style town. This period is today referred to as the Baroque Belgrade. The governor in this period, Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, ordered the construction of Württemberg Palace, a massive building used as his seat, which was located at the modern Republic Square area. There, he formed something of the first zoo in Belgrade. He ordered his soldiers to capture and bring to him "wild beasts from the forests and mountains of Serbia", which he then kept in cages. The Austrians withdrew in 1739 and the Ottomans demolished the building in 1743.

The Belgrade's first general urban plan, which was adopted in 1924, envisioned construction of the zoo in Topčider, at the time on the outskirts of the city.

The present Belgrade Zoological Garden was officially opened on 12 July 1936 by the mayor of Belgrade, Vlada Ilić. The zoo was initially no larger than 3.5 hectares (8.6 acres), but was eventually expanded to about 14 hectares. It quickly became one of the most popular places with the locals and even members of the Karađorđević dynasty, who were regulars at the zoo. In the beginning, animals were acquired through personal donations. First group of animals was purchased by mayor Ilić himself while the first manager, Aleksandar Krstić, purchased the first hippopotamus in 1937 to celebrate the birth iof his son.

During the Second World War, the zoo was bombed twice, by the Nazis in 1941 and by the Allies in 1944, heavily damaging the infrastructure and killing most of the animals. The zoo also lost seven hectares of land. The 1941 bombing of the zoo was described in Winston Churchill's The Second World War and Emir Kusturica's 1995 film Underground. Miodrag Savković, manager of the zoo during the World War II occupation, was arrested right away by the new Communist authorities, and shot, even though the charges against him nor his resting place are known.

The zoo recovered over time but again faced tough times in the eighties. Animals were neglected and living in bad conditions. In 1984 the zoo received a pair of black rhinoceroses as a gift from the Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and the country of Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, they lived for just a couple of months due to bad care and lack of knowledge about this species. In 1989 Muammar Gaddafi also gave six of his Arabian camels. The government, under the pressure of real estate groups also unsuccessfully tried to appropriate the space to build luxurious hotels, casinos and nightclubs. Belgrade zoo was preserved thank to efforts from sculptor Vuk Bojović, who served as the zoo's director between May 1, 1986 and his death on September 17, 2014. He received substantial recognition for his work throughout the region. Bojović made various improvements to the living conditions of animals, brought numerous new species to the animal collection - most notably great apes, white tigers, and lions - changed the zoo's bad management, and made it a profitable business.

During the tenure of mayor Dragan Đilas (2008–13), the idea of expanding the zoo to Donji Grad, which it occupied prior to the World War II, resurfaced, but the experts and Bojović himself were against it. The urban plan for the fortress from 1965 already projected the complete relocation of the zoo outside of the fortress, on some of the suburban locations, which in later plans included Veliko Blato, Stepin Lug or Jelezovac. The expansion of the zoo would block the pedestrian pathways between the Danube's and Sava's parts of the fortress, which had been blocked in 1949 but then restored in 2009 with the reconstruction and opening of the Sava Gate. Also, it would prevent the exploration of Donji Grad, which is still largely unexplored and leave the Gate of Charles VI, a masterpiece of Balthasar Neumann, within the zoo itself. By 2017, the zoo had not relocated and the idea of expansion was dropped.

Animals and exhibits

Belgrade zoo holds more than 1,700 animals of around 150 species. One of the zoo's biggest attractions are white lions. The first pair was received in 2005 from the Kruger National Park, making Belgrade zoo at the time the only one in Europe to exhibit these animals. Since welcoming its first cub in 2008, the zoo has had significant success in breeding these big cats. Furthermore, Belgrade zoo obtained a white buffalo from Texas in 2007, and saw its first white calf in 2018. The zoo also features a pair of white tigers.

The "Australian pavilion" is an outback-themed enclosure located near the main entrance and officially opened in April 2010. The exhibit displays red kangaroos, black swans and several species of parakeets indigenous to Australia.

A small hippodrome is next to it, surrounded by paddocks holding even-toed ungulates like llamas, reindeer, red deer, fallow deer, Barbary sheep, muflons, American bisons and yaks.

The zoo also opened a South-American exhibit in April 2015 for the newly arrived pair of Brazilian tapirs and it also houses rheas, Patagonian maras, southern screamers and capybaras. The enclosure's indoor area features a pool as ell as heating, like other facilities for exotics species.

The reptile house is divided into desert and rain-forest wing and holds animals like boa constrictors, green anacondas, Burmese pythons, emerald tree boas, rock monitors, Nile monitors, spectacled caimans and the oldest living alligator in the world, Muja.

The ape house features species such as Bornean orangutan, chimpanzee, Barbary macaque, De Brazza's monkey, silvery marmoset and Southern three-banded armadillo. There is also a separate enclosure for ring-tailed lemurs.

One of the most spacious exhibits at the zoo displays African savannah dwellers such as reticulated giraffes, Grant's zebras, dorcas gazelles, elands and ostriches, while white lions and cheetahs can also be seen in enclosures surrounding the facility.

The petting zoo, which was opened in April 2019, is a walk-through outdoor exhibit extending over a thousand square miles that houses domestic animals such as alpacas, rabbits and pygmy goats. It also features a coffe shop and a children's playground.

The construction of the exhibit for seventeen Humboldt penguins, which arrived from Vienna and the Emirates, finished the same year. It features a spacious outdoor pool with a cooling system as well as an indoor area. Before this Belgrade zoo hadn't exhibited penguins in around thirty years. The first penguin chick to be born in a Serbian zoo was hatched in May 2021.

Other notable animal species in Belgrade zoo include Asian elephant, Bactrian camel, Siberian ibex, hippopotamus, Cape fur seal, Arctic wolf, spotted hyena, Persian leopard, jaguar, serval, Asiatic black bear, fennec fox, honey badger, Oriental small-clawed otter, raccoon, white-nosed coati, binturong, meerkat, Indian crested porcupine, southern cassowary, greater flamingo, black crowned crane, black-necked aracari, southern ground hornbill, trumpeter hornbill, marabou stork, Steller's sea eagle, Andean condor and Cuban crocodile. The zoo is also active in conservation and species-preservation efforts of the endangered local fauna such as griffon vulture, bearded vulture and Balkan lynx. In September 2018, the zoo reintroduced its first griffon vulture to the wild.

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  Bengal tiger
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  Egyptian vulture
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  Eurasian lynx
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  Green iguanas
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  Red deer
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  White tiger
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  White stork
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  Hippopotamus mother with a calf

• Harbour seal
  Harbour seal
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  Nile crocodile
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  Southern ground hornbill
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  Marabou
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  Gyrfalcon

Notable animals

Statue of Sami the chimpanzee

Throughout its history, the zoo has had several residents, well known for their scientific importance or for being beloved by the public.

Sami the chimpanzee was the first great ape to be displayed at the zoo. He received widespread public attention when he escaped from his cage just a month following his arrival in 1988. After an hour of wandering through Belgrade's downtown streets, Sami was calmed down by the zoo's manager, Vuk Bojović, who then placed him in his personal vehicle and drove him back to his cage. The ape managed to escape again, just two days later, but was this time caught by using a tranquilizer gun.

Gabi was a German shepherd that saved her partner, a night guard, from an escaped jaguar. Though she had been seriously wounded during the fight with the feline, she eventually recovered and continued her night guard duty.

Muja is considered to be the world's oldest living alligator. In 1937, he was transferred to Belgrade as an adult from an undocumented zoo in Germany. Despite the fact that his real age is unknown, certain document suggest that he was two years old at the time of his arrival.

See also

• Palić Zoo
• Tourism in Serbia

External links

• Official website (in Serbian)