Zoologischer Garten Berlin
Encyclopedia
The Berlin Zoological Garden is the oldest and best known zoo in Germany
. Opened in 1844 it covers 34 hectares (84 acre) and is located in Berlin
's Tiergarten
. With more than 1,500 different species
and around 17,000 animals the zoo presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.
The zoo and its aquarium
had almost 3 million visitors in 2010. It is considered to be the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. Regular animal feedings are among its most famous attractions. Globally known animals like Knut
, the polar bear
, and Bao Bao, the Giant Panda
have contributed to the zoo's public image.
The zoo collaborates with many universities, research institutes, and other zoos around the world. It maintains and promotes European breeding programmes
, helps safeguard several endangered species, and participates in several species reintroduction programs.
, from the menagerie
and pheasantry of the Tiergarten
.
During the Second World War, the zoo area was completely destroyed and only 91 of 3,715 animals survived, including two lions, two hyenas, an Asian bull elephant, a hippo bull, ten hamadryas baboons, a chimpanzee, and a black stork, among a few others. By the end of the war the zoo was fortified with Flak towers and a center of Nazi resistance against the Red Army
and allied air forces
with bunkers and anti-aircraft weapons. Following the zoo's destruction, it and the associated Aquarium have been reconstructed on the most modern principles so as to display the animals in their natural environment. The success achieved in breeding animals, including some rare species, demonstrates the efficiency of these new methods.
The Berlin Zoo is the most visited zoo in Europe
with approximately 3.0 million annual visitors from all over the world. It is open all year long and can easily be reached by public transportation. The Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station
(also simply known as Zoo) is one of Berlin's most important stations. Several modes of transport such as U-Bahn, S-Bahn and buses are interlinked here. Visitors can either enter the zoo through the exotically designed Elephant
Gate beside the aquarium on Budapester Straße or through the Lion Gate on Hardenbergplatz.
A breeding function of the zoo is its program maintaining the studbooks for black
and Indian rhinoceros
es and gaur
s. The populations of rare deer
and pigs
are part of several captive breeding
projects. Berlin Zoo supports conservationists e.g. in Madagascar
and as a partner of the Stiftung Artenschutz.
Almost all of the animals are housed in enclosures that are specially designed to recreate their natural habitat
.
The carnivore house displays all big cats and many rare small predators, such as ring-tailed mongoose
s and narrow-striped mongoose
s from Madagascar. In the basement, visitors are invited to a view into the world of nocturnal animals.
The bird house presents a walk-through aviary and offers a broad variety of forms, including several regularly breeding species of hornbills and many parrots. Numerous big aviaries show waders, herons and many other species. The Berlin zoo is one of the few zoos to exhibit Tuatara
and Luzon Tarictic Hornbills.
The Aquarium, which was built in 1913 as part of the Zoologischer Garten complex. Since its opening the Zoo-Aquarium has been ranked among the public aquariums with the world’s greatest biodiversity. On either a separate or joint ticket it can be visited with the zoo.
Over 9 000 animals are presented on three storeys. It contains a famous jellyfish breeding, tropical and native fishes, crocodiles and broad variety of insects. In addition to its 250 fish tanks, the Aquarium houses a wide variety of amphibians and reptiles including the Komodo dragon
.
The shark tank presents the blacktip reef shark
and one sand tiger shark. The chondrichthians
, or cartilaginous fishes, are an ancient class of animal that includes both the sharks and the rays.
With a total capacity of 25,000 litres twelve basins present different sections through the world of corals. The largest of these basins is the 11 m³ Great Coral Basin with its reproduction lagoon.
was born in captivity
at the Zoo on 5 December 2006. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was subsequently raised by zookeepers and became the center of a mass media
phenomenon that spanned the globe, quickly spawning numerous toys, media specials, DVDs, and books. Because of this, the cub was largely responsible for a significant increase in revenue, estimated at about five million euros, at the Berlin Zoo in 2007. Zoo attendance figures for the year increased by an estimated 30 percent making it the most profitable year in its 165-year history. Knut died on 19 March 2011 after collapsing in his exhibit.
Bao Bao (born 1978) is the only Giant Panda
in a German zoo and the eldest known Giant Panda in a zoo worldwide. Like many of his kind, he is on a permanent loan from China for breeding purposes. In spite of several artificial insemination experiments with a female named Yan Yan, there have been no offspring yet.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Opened in 1844 it covers 34 hectares (84 acre) and is located in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
's Tiergarten
Großer Tiergarten
The Großer Tiergarten, simply known as Tiergarten, is an urban public park of Germany located in the middle of Berlin, completely in the homonymous locality...
. With more than 1,500 different species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
and around 17,000 animals the zoo presents the most comprehensive collection of species in the world.
The zoo and its aquarium
Aquarium
An aquarium is a vivarium consisting of at least one transparent side in which water-dwelling plants or animals are kept. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, marine mammals, turtles, and aquatic plants...
had almost 3 million visitors in 2010. It is considered to be the most visited zoo in Europe and one of the most popular worldwide. Regular animal feedings are among its most famous attractions. Globally known animals like Knut
Knut (polar bear)
Knut was a polar bear who was born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. At one time the subject of international controversy,...
, the polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
, and Bao Bao, the Giant Panda
Giant Panda
The giant panda, or panda is a bear native to central-western and south western China. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is 99% bamboo...
have contributed to the zoo's public image.
The zoo collaborates with many universities, research institutes, and other zoos around the world. It maintains and promotes European breeding programmes
European Endangered Species Programme
The European Endangered Species Programme or EEP is the most intensive type of population management for a species kept in European Association of Zoos and Aquaria zoos...
, helps safeguard several endangered species, and participates in several species reintroduction programs.
History
Opened on August 1, 1844 the Zoologischer Garten Berlin was the first zoo in present-day Germany. The aquarium opened in 1913. The early animals were donated by Frederick William IV, King of PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, from the menagerie
Menagerie
A menagerie is/was a form of keeping common and exotic animals in captivity that preceded the modern zoological garden. The term was first used in seventeenth century France in reference to the management of household or domestic stock. Later, it came to be used primarily in reference to...
and pheasantry of the Tiergarten
Tiergarten
Tiergarten is a locality within the borough of Mitte, in central Berlin . Notable for the great and homonymous urban park, before German reunification, it was a part of West Berlin...
.
During the Second World War, the zoo area was completely destroyed and only 91 of 3,715 animals survived, including two lions, two hyenas, an Asian bull elephant, a hippo bull, ten hamadryas baboons, a chimpanzee, and a black stork, among a few others. By the end of the war the zoo was fortified with Flak towers and a center of Nazi resistance against the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
and allied air forces
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
with bunkers and anti-aircraft weapons. Following the zoo's destruction, it and the associated Aquarium have been reconstructed on the most modern principles so as to display the animals in their natural environment. The success achieved in breeding animals, including some rare species, demonstrates the efficiency of these new methods.
Zoo
| Group | Species | Animals |
|---|---|---|
| Mammal Mammal Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young... s |
174 | 1,028 |
| Bird Bird Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from... s |
329 | 2,310 |
| Reptile Reptile Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors... s |
73 | 435 |
| Amphibian Amphibian Amphibians , are a class of vertebrate animals including animals such as toads, frogs, caecilians, and salamanders. They are characterized as non-amniote ectothermic tetrapods... s |
52 | 500 |
| Fish Fish Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups... |
586 | 6.006 |
| Invertebrate Invertebrate An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group... s |
340 | 6,855 |
| Total (2010) | 1,554 | 17,133 |
The Berlin Zoo is the most visited zoo in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
with approximately 3.0 million annual visitors from all over the world. It is open all year long and can easily be reached by public transportation. The Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station
Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station
Berlin Zoologischer Garten station was the central transport facility in West Berlin during the division of the city, and thereafter for the western central area of Berlin until opening of the new Berlin Central Station on 28 May 2006...
(also simply known as Zoo) is one of Berlin's most important stations. Several modes of transport such as U-Bahn, S-Bahn and buses are interlinked here. Visitors can either enter the zoo through the exotically designed Elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
Gate beside the aquarium on Budapester Straße or through the Lion Gate on Hardenbergplatz.
A breeding function of the zoo is its program maintaining the studbooks for black
Black Rhinoceros
The Black Rhinoceros or Hook-lipped Rhinoceros , is a species of rhinoceros, native to the eastern and central areas of Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Angola...
and Indian rhinoceros
Indian Rhinoceros
The Indian Rhinoceros is also called Greater One-horned Rhinoceros and Asian One-horned Rhinoceros and belongs to the Rhinocerotidae family...
es and gaur
Gaur
The gaur , also called Indian bison, is a large bovine native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. The species is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1986 as the population decline in parts of the species' range is likely to be well over 70% over the last three generations...
s. The populations of rare deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
and pigs
Suidae
Suidae is the biological family to which pigs belong. In addition to numerous fossil species, up to sixteen extant species are currently recognized, classified into between four and eight genera...
are part of several captive breeding
Captive breeding
Captive breedingis the process of breeding animals in human controlled environments with restricted settings, such as wildlife reserves, zoos and other conservation facilities; sometimes the process is construed to include release of individual organisms to the wild, when there is sufficient...
projects. Berlin Zoo supports conservationists e.g. in Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
and as a partner of the Stiftung Artenschutz.
Almost all of the animals are housed in enclosures that are specially designed to recreate their natural habitat
Habitat
* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...
.
The carnivore house displays all big cats and many rare small predators, such as ring-tailed mongoose
Ring-tailed mongoose
The Ring-tailed mongoose is a euplerid that lives on the island of Madagascar. There is actually much disagreement about the placement of Madagascar's carnivores including the Ring-tailed mongoose, within the phylogenetic tree. Recent molecular work by Anne Yoder et al...
s and narrow-striped mongoose
Narrow-striped Mongoose
The Narrow-striped Mongoose , also locally called boky-boky in Malagasy, is a member of the family Eupleridae, subfamily Galidiinae. It inhabits the dry deciduous forests of western and southwestern Madagascar...
s from Madagascar. In the basement, visitors are invited to a view into the world of nocturnal animals.
The bird house presents a walk-through aviary and offers a broad variety of forms, including several regularly breeding species of hornbills and many parrots. Numerous big aviaries show waders, herons and many other species. The Berlin zoo is one of the few zoos to exhibit Tuatara
Tuatara
The tuatara is a reptile endemic to New Zealand which, though it resembles most lizards, is actually part of a distinct lineage, order Sphenodontia. The two species of tuatara are the only surviving members of its order, which flourished around 200 million years ago. Their most recent common...
and Luzon Tarictic Hornbills.
Aquarium
Over 9 000 animals are presented on three storeys. It contains a famous jellyfish breeding, tropical and native fishes, crocodiles and broad variety of insects. In addition to its 250 fish tanks, the Aquarium houses a wide variety of amphibians and reptiles including the Komodo dragon
Komodo dragon
The Komodo dragon , also known as the Komodo monitor, is a large species of lizard found in the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang and Gili Dasami. A member of the monitor lizard family , it is the largest living species of lizard, growing to a maximum length of in rare cases...
.
The shark tank presents the blacktip reef shark
Blacktip reef shark
The blacktip reef shark is a species of requiem shark, family Carcharhinidae, easily identified by the prominent black tips on its fins...
and one sand tiger shark. The chondrichthians
Chondrichthyes
Chondrichthyes or cartilaginous fishes are jawed fish with paired fins, paired nares, scales, two-chambered hearts, and skeletons made of cartilage rather than bone...
, or cartilaginous fishes, are an ancient class of animal that includes both the sharks and the rays.
With a total capacity of 25,000 litres twelve basins present different sections through the world of corals. The largest of these basins is the 11 m³ Great Coral Basin with its reproduction lagoon.
Animals
The polar bear KnutKnut (polar bear)
Knut was a polar bear who was born in captivity at the Berlin Zoological Garden. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was raised by zookeepers. He was the first polar bear cub to survive past infancy at the Berlin Zoo in more than 30 years. At one time the subject of international controversy,...
was born in captivity
Captivity (animal)
Animals that live under human care are in captivity. Captivity can be used as a generalizing term to describe the keeping of either domesticated animals or wild animals. This may include for example farms, private homes and zoos...
at the Zoo on 5 December 2006. Rejected by his mother at birth, he was subsequently raised by zookeepers and became the center of a mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
phenomenon that spanned the globe, quickly spawning numerous toys, media specials, DVDs, and books. Because of this, the cub was largely responsible for a significant increase in revenue, estimated at about five million euros, at the Berlin Zoo in 2007. Zoo attendance figures for the year increased by an estimated 30 percent making it the most profitable year in its 165-year history. Knut died on 19 March 2011 after collapsing in his exhibit.
Bao Bao (born 1978) is the only Giant Panda
Giant Panda
The giant panda, or panda is a bear native to central-western and south western China. It is easily recognized by its large, distinctive black patches around the eyes, over the ears, and across its round body. Though it belongs to the order Carnivora, the panda's diet is 99% bamboo...
in a German zoo and the eldest known Giant Panda in a zoo worldwide. Like many of his kind, he is on a permanent loan from China for breeding purposes. In spite of several artificial insemination experiments with a female named Yan Yan, there have been no offspring yet.