Budapest Zoo

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Main entrance to the zoo

The Budapest Zoo is the municipal zoo in the Hungarian capital Budapest, founded in 1866 .

The zoological-botanical garden (Fővárosi Állat- és Növénykert) is located on the north-western side of the city park . It can be reached by metro line 1 ( Széchenyi fürdő stop ).

The annual number of visitors is over 1,000,000. As of December 31, 2015, the zoo held over 1,056 mammals in 124 species, 672 reptiles in 106 species, and 1,323 birds in 144 species. In addition, around 2000 plant species are shown, including a bonsai collection.

history

Zoo entrance (1900)

The first plans to build a zoo in Budapest emerged in the 1820s. The plans did not become concrete until the beginning of the 1860s, with four scientists in particular pushing ahead with the construction of the zoo: the geologist József Szabó, the director of the Botanical Garden József Gerenday, the director of the National Museum Ágoston Kubinyi and the zoologist János Xántus , who was then the first director of the Zoos became. On August 9, 1866, the zoo was opened with around 500 animals, some of which were native to Hungary and some of which came from the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna . In 1868, Queen Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary gave the zoo a female giraffe. In 1876 the first predatory animal house with lions and tigers was opened. From 1873 Karóly Serák was the zoo director who ran the zoo for the next thirty years. The zoo was originally owned by a public limited company, which went bankrupt in 1896. The zoo has been owned by the City of Budapest since 1907. After a three-year renovation phase, the zoo was reopened in 1912 under the direction of Adolf Lendl and now had a very modern, Art Nouveau architecture. In the Second World War, the zoo was almost completely destroyed, only 15 animals survived. On May 1, 1945, the zoo reopened with only a few animals. Under the zoo director Csaba Anghi, the zoo was rebuilt and modernized in the years to come. After a few years of stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a new surge in modernization from the mid-1990s. For a very long time, the zoo had an area of ​​10.8 hectares; in 2014, 6.5 hectares were added from the former Holnemvolt Park amusement area, which should gradually expand the existing zoo offerings by 2021.

building

The zoo has a palm house to which the aquarium is attached. There is also a savannah house for giraffes and rhinos, an elephant house, a monkey house, a koala house, a Madagascar house, an India house, an Australian house, a reptile house, a house for buffalo, a South American house, a venomous snake house, a house for giant otters , as well as a butterfly and insect house. After the renovation in 2021, elephants, rhinos, crocodiles and other animals will move to the new site, which will free up some of the previous buildings for new uses.

gallery

  • Palm House (1957)

  • Elephant house

  • Hippos (1942)

  • White rhinoceros (2009)

  • Komodo dragon (2009)

  • Marabou (2009)

literature

  • Anthony Sheridan: Zooming in on Europe's Zoos. Sheridan's Guide to Europe's Zoos 2010–2025. Schüling Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-86523-087-4 , p. 226f.

Web links

Commons : Budapest Zoo  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Anthony Sheridan: Zooming in on Europe's Zoos. Sheridan's Guide to Europe's Zoos 2010–2025. P. 226
  2. ↑ History of the zoo on the zoo's homepage
  3. ^ Anthony Sheridan: Zooming in on Europe's Zoos. Sheridan's Guide to Europe's Zoos 2010–2025. P. 227