Not too long ago 3 Chinese leopards were born in Krakow Zoo! Quite a good result with sadly one of the lesser held leopard ssp.!!!
Work has started on a Giraffe facility at Krakow. The exhibit is expected to be completed and the animals arrive in Autumn 2013 Google Translate
The Giraffe facility is now finished and the first 3 individuals have moved in - They are a bachelor group consisting of 1.0 Baringo from Liberec and Warsaw respectively as well as a Reticulated male from Stuttgart ?yrafy po raz pierwszy w krakowskim zoo. "Spe?ni?o si? marzenie"
Prague built a similar giraffe house in 1984 (large prefabricated hall with a glass wall between animals and visitors) and also the current house (completed in 2001) has a glass wall as a barrier. Liberec opened their giraffe house in 1985, animals can be seen only through a long glass window. Olomouc opened their giraffe house in 1992, also with just a window in the visitos´s area. This is a common design for giraffe houses in Czech zoos.
In Krakow is also tigress DARIA from Magdeburg/Germany. Can somebody tell me if the male tiger JENKI (born in Nürnberg/Germany) is still in Krakow?
Visited the zoo a few days back. The zoo has an interesting collection of small mammals (mostly small carnivores and nocturnal animals) which was my main reason for dropping by. I did notice a lot of maintance work in the zoo which ment a lot of species were not visible. Coati, sitatunga, waterbuck, porcupine... also a big part of the bird collection, as well as the pygmy hippo's, were still behind the scenes because of the climate. Some good enclosures, but unfortunately also a lot of sub-par ones. Some small carnivores are in tiny enclosures while some large, former big cat enclosures are empty and not being used... Big cat enclosures decently sized, but with very little cover, water, foliage or other natural elements except for some rockwork. Primate enclosures quite small, especially for the larger species. Bird of prey enclosures were hit or miss. Some small, some large. Elephant enclosure quite small and barren. Sea lion enclosure way too small. Penguin enclosure not bad. Education is poor. Most of the time just a few words and a distribution map, not even photographs. Out of the 5 Polish zoos I've seen, I liked Krakow the least. I've been adding photos of the zoo to the zoochat gallery and updating ZTL for those who want to see/know more about this zoo.
Another cat-related news from polish zoos: Kraków announced that one male siberian tiger was born 2,5 months ago. Parents are: Daria and Jurij.
