Basel Zoo

About

Zoo Basel is a zoological garden in the city of Basel, Switzerland. Its official name is Zoologischer Garten Basel — or in English: Basel Zoological Garden. Basel residents affectionately call it Zolli. Its main entrance is just outside Basel's city centre and extends in the Birsig stream valley to Basel's city border with Binningen, Basel-Country. The zoo has over 500 animal species from all seven continents. Zoo Basel is Switzerland's oldest (1874) and largest zoo by number of animals. In 2024 it got over 1.2 million visitors. Zoo Basel was ranked as one of the fifteen best zoos in the world by Forbes Traveler in 2008 and in 2009 as the seventh best in Europe by Anthony Sheridan from the Zoological Society of London. The zoo had the first Indian rhinoceros birth in a zoo, as well as the first greater flamingo hatch. It has had repeated breeding success with animals including cheetahs (18 births), okapi (22), pygmy hippopotamuses (53), and flamingos (over 400 hatches). Every Somali wild ass (a donkey) in zoos worldwide is related to the population in Basel, where this species' zoological breeding program was started. The zoo is currently engaged in more than 40 conservation breeding...

Zoo Basel is surrounded by the city of Basel and has a similar role to the local population as does the Central Park in New York City for the city's residents. According to Zoo Basel, its "exhibits are designed not to reveal everything at the first glance and are planned to invite visitors to stop and make personal observations."

Listed below are some of Zoo Basel's exhibits. Note, however, that exhibits continually change due to infrastructure upgrades, breeding successes, and the construction of new exhibits.

The aquarium (called Vivarium in Basel) was opened in 1972 and has had several notable breeding successes through the years. These include lungfish bichir offspring in 2006, repeated king penguin hatches, and over a thousand hatches of the red-bellied short-necked turtle since 1981.

As of May 2012, there were about 6,000 animals in the Vivarium in 480 species, including fish, reptiles, amphibians, gentoo penguins, and king penguins.

During the winter months, the gentoo and king penguins have access to an outdoor area and can be observed walking from the Vivarium to it every morning around eleven.

Hippos, ostriches, and zebras ( Grant's zebra ) live together in the Africa exhibit.

The Africa exhibit was Zoo Basel's first in which three species share the same outdoor area. According to the zoo, experiences gained in this exhibit helped shape the Etosha theme area and the rhinoceros outdoor exhibit.

It was completed in 1993 and has been scene of several accidents. On October 13, 2004, after twelve years of living together, the 17-year-old zebra stallion bit the hippo male during its daily morning territory marking, the zebra fell into the water, and was killed by the hippos in front of several visitors.

On February 13, 2013, Zoo Basel reported that the ostrich couple Baringo (b. 1993) and Manyara (b. 1992) had yet another ten chicks. According to its webpage, Zoo Basel "is especially proud that the ostrich parents are very successfully natural breeders." While Manyara was sitting on the eggs during the day, Baringo took over the night shifts. Without human breeding help, about 110 ostriches have hatched in Basel since 2000.

Zoo Basel first acquired kangaroos in 1908. Since then, over a hundred kangaroos have been born. In 2006, the theme area Australis was opened, funded by Novartis. In this outdoor exhibit, western grey kangaroos and Australian brush-turkeys live together. Inside the Australis house are several vivaria exhibiting Australian animals, including geckos, redback spiders, cane toads, several species of Phasmatodeas (or stick insects), and green tree pythons. An educational exhibit inside the house focuses on marsupial reproduction.

The Bird House opened in 1927 and is the second oldest building in Zoo Basel. While in the early days this house used to have reptiles and monkeys, it now has only birds.

The 'jungle' in the center of the bird house has free-flying birds, who can hide in the thick vegetation. Some like the Knysna turaco can be heard but are only visible in flight.

Since 1948 the zoo has hosted birds belonging to the Zosteropidae bird family. The small montane white-eye bird, that belongs to this family, came in 2008 again to Basel, after 20 years of absence.

The opening of the Etosha theme area in 2001 started the implementation of the large theme area concept of modern zoos at Zoo Basel. The exhibit consists of the Etosha house, outdoor exhibits for the cheetahs, African wild dogs, ring-tailed lemurs, Cape porcupines, and the lions, as well as the Gamgoas house. They build a theme area around the African circle of life.

The Etosha exhibit was named after the Etosha National Park : the largest national park in Namibia and in the southwest of Africa. It is about half the size of Switzerland.

Gamgoas is part of the Etosha theme area, but it refers mainly to the lion and crocodile house. Gamgoas's literal meaning in the local language of the Etosha people is "the place where the lions are."

In the Gamgoas house are two colonies of termites, one chameleon, five Nile crocodiles, several dozen East African cichlids (fish), a semi-large information exhibition, and three lion observation windows. A large window at the Nile crocodile enclosure allows visitors to see the crocodiles under water and to be within an inch of them.

On June 20, 2006, several Nile crocodiles hatched for the first time in the zoo's history. Two of these new crocodiles grew up in the zoo and are now among the five Nile crocodiles at Zoo Basel.

The monkey house (built in 1969) is the zoo's largest building and has had several breeding successes, such as the first gorilla baby in Europe ( Goma ), the first second-generation zoo gorilla in the world ( Tamtam ), and rare white-faced saki babies.