I haven’t done a proper zoo report/review in some time - I think the last time I did anything detailed was for Ljubljana in 2013. In many ways zoo trips can be a bit overwhelming for me and keeping notes and taking comprehensive pictures with a report in mind doesn’t help, especially in larger collections. But the Bioparco di Roma isn’t too big and whilst being far from obscure it isn’t one of the most discussed zoos here so I thought I’d write up my thoughts. A note on how I got here. Planning isn’t going my way at the moment in more ways than one. As I have said elsewhere I was going to visit Australia and New Zealand in early 2020, a trip which would include a number of zoo visits but cancelled that (due to my best friend’s wedding being called off). I then planned a birthday trip to go to Paris for the first time in years with the two zoos a highlight of the visit. But strikes resulted in my train being cancelled. Luckily I booked my train and hotel as a Eurostar package so got a full refund. So that’s how I ended up in Rome. I booked a very reasonable package at the last minute (2 days before departure). I’ve never had to change plans at such short notice before and it’s not something that comes easy to me at all. So I’m actually feeling quite proud of myself for managing it all. I’ve been to Italy before but never to the capital city and I have never visited any Italian zoos before. Looking at the weather forecast the sunniest and driest day would be my first full day in Rome - today - so I went to the Bioparco before visiting any of the historic sites. The sun didn’t last that long but it stayed dry and was quite warm. The zoo was my first site to see in Rome but I’d already been manhandled by a nun. My hotel is a former convent and the chapel is still functioning. I popped in to have a look on my way out and was immediately pounced upon and asked to give a donation to the missions. Having survived 11 years of fundamentalist and frankly gothic Roman Catholic education I felt no guilt in shrugging and legging it out of there! Their website notes that “Given its special setting in the centre of the city – in Villa Borghese – the Bioparco can be reached easily either by bus or by metro”. But it doesn’t say what lines go there. So I had to do some extra investigative work and I still had trouble getting there from my hotel with a long and confusing journey. But I got there in the end. I will start to post a full review tomorrow and photos will also be posted in due course.
The zoo is in a park and the entrance to the zoo area is a very grand and imposing traditional gateway. In many ways first impressions reminded me of Lisbon Zoo. Like Lisbon the 19th century entrance is not the actual gate to the zoo. A couple of enclosures are visible or situated outside the actual ticketed area. You buy your ticket at the ticket counters and then walk to the entrance to present your ticket to go in. Entrance was €16. The zoo opens at 09:30 and is open every day of the year except Christmas Day. At the moment all catering outlets in the zoo are closed for refurbishment. The enclosures visible outside are part of the coati enclosure - with a nativity scene in the moat at the moment and a basic glass fronted aviary style enclosure for large hairy armadillo and red-fronted macaw. There is also a former ape house with cages which now house a shop and catering outlets. Your ticket comes with a large map which has a numbered key in both Italian and English. You can buy a guidebook which I only saw in the shop as I left but it costs €9.00. Two things struck me about the zoo in general. There is lots of signage and it’s very good. Education is clearly a priority here. Sometimes I found the sheer size of the boards and the amount of information overwhelming. But as a concept and clear mission it’s impressive and consistent. The other point is that viewing of enclosures is very often restricted with much of the perimeters fenced or screened off. I think this is a positive and probably relatively inexpensive way of improving animal welfare. But I wouldn’t fancy visiting on a crowded weekend as it would make it often difficult to see into the enclosures. As you enter the zoo proper you see in front of you a building which serves as a rooftop viewing terrace for the giraffes. The ground floor also has viewing windows and lots of signage. Looking at an old zoo map it appears to be the former cat house and there is a barred area on the outside. It’s similar to the old cat enclosures at Vienna which you can walk inside. There were three giraffes in a straightforward paddock with wooden fencing and enrichment feeders. The ‘heritage’ building is looking a bit worse for wear and there is no internal viewing as far as I could see but I may have missed that. Marabou stork were signed but I didn’t see any. There is only a small area for ground level viewing outside but it’s over a nicely planted moat with a stream. Across from the giraffes is the former monkey house. The interior now houses a museum of environmental crime and outside under a huge image of an owl in flight are two glass fronted aviaries. There a screens in front of them forming a viewing area but visibility was still very poor due to reflections. One houses snowy owl, the other Eurasian eagle owl. They aren’t enormous and have rear walls with photos of the tundra and a forest seen respectively. I’ll note here that there isn’t an obvious route around the zoo. It isn’t huge but I did do a bit of backtracking at times. I chose to go behind the museum building next to where the new white rhino enclosure is. It’s a round paddock with opportunity to separate the animals and housing in the middle. As noted in posts above there are two rhinos. I only remembered it was very new after I left. Had I remembered I’d have taken more photos. Next to the rhino are a row of three metal barred paddocks - more like yards really - with Grévy’s zebra (in two yards I think) and one with a pair of ostrich. These aren’t bad as such but they are very old school zoo and I sort of liked them all the more for it. There was a zebra foal too. These paddocks are on a longish straight avenue and across from them are standard mixed Australian and South American yard-like enclosures. They looked a bit barren but species wise Australia has red-necked wallaby, emu, cape barren goose. Like other enclosures viewing is limited to certain viewpoints with fencing and planting in place around most of the perimeter. An interesting Australia related side note - looking at the 1969 map the marsupial collection appeared to include thylacine! I can understand an illustrator making the error but I’m surprised it got signed off! The South American yard has rhea, mara, capybara and lowland tapir - but no sign of tapir while I was there. Behind this is a small vicuña paddock with the heavy barred fencing again. Back down behind the zebras are some monkey enclosures. White crowned mangabey are the first to be seen in a mesh tent style covered enclosure with two separate covered viewing points with windows. There is lots of varied natural substrate including wood chip mulch, soil and grass. Not much height but there are decent climbing opportunities. The mandrill enclosure is similar but it’s more apparent that this is a cage that has been modernised - I think it was multiple small mammal/carnivore cages before. Next up is a very effective roughly circular callitrichid house. There is signage everywhere including an engaging ‘portrait gallery’ with framed pictures of the callitrichid species. Housed here are cotton topped tamarin and emperor tamarin in well-planted aviary style enclosures and pygmy marmoset at the centre of the round building - One side of which had a view of animal kitchens. A small farm area is partly under renovation. Girgentana goats with partial markhor ancestry (previously seen by me at Munich earlier this year) and donkey can be seen in fairly small yards. There is then a row of three raised paddocks. Himalayan tahr are first in a yard with a high fence behind planted border which made them a bit hard to see on their rocky terraces. Mouflon are next and then Italian Montechristo Island wild goats. The goats had better viewing as no there was no high fence. At the end of this row are African wild dog in a mesh fenced enclosure with lots of trees and dens. I saw 3 or 4 individuals in corner resting together. It isn’t a huge enclosure by any means.
The path turns a corner and suddenly is rather steep with occasional steps. There is viewing of goats from behind the row of paddocks through peep holes and again a great deal of informative signage is here. The CNR primate research centre here consists of two glass fronted enclosures for capuchins not unlike the other monkey enclosures but with a somewhat garish red painted mock rock walls. Going further up the steep path there is an unremarkable yard for red river hogs and on the other side of the path you can look down to the mouflon enclosure. At the top is a very Japanese enclosure for Japanese macaques. It’s a typical concrete monkey mountain but there is a pond and small waterfall, an area of natural substrate, logs, branches and enrichment items. I noticed that a few individuals had no hair on back and their skin didn’t look great. But I’m not an expert so wouldn’t draw any conclusions. Next to the macaques are dama gazelle in a standard paddock and the famous herd of Nile lechwe which numbered around 30 animals. Addax were a no show in a smallish yard. You then come to a U shaped arrangement of low aviaries hosing Moluccan cockatoo, mountain caracara (in two separate aviaries), king vulture and Rüppell’s vulture. The aviaries seemed a bit on the small side. I now passed the end of the path with the ostrich yard and opposite the mixed Australian enclosure. A path leads down hill with a nice looking and well planted enclosure for black lemur and red ruffed lemur which is currently under refurbishment. A former yak paddock serves as an open topped ring tailed lemur enclosure with some large trees. The lemurs don’t have access to the trees. You then come to the sea lion and penguin area. For some reason this part of the zoo can be closed off with a gate. There is a large concrete ice mountain style enclosure which housed polar bears in the past. It’s now home to sea lions but this too was under renovation and the pool was drained. Opposite is an African penguin enclosure which was also under refurb with the pool closed off. According to signage they have an off show pool. I noted large fans have been built into the enclosure and again there was extensive and engaging signage. Leaving this area you pass a small pool currently housing the sea lions and a larger pool for grey seal. The other side of the path has a row of converted rocky grotto style enclosures. The first housed Asian small-clawed otter and binturong in a netted enclosure with large glass windows. There was lots of natural substrate and climbing opportunities but no sign of the animals. Next were the 2 tiger enclosures. The first with Sumatran tigers and the second with a white tiger. Signage explained the science of white tigers and that this individual had been confiscated by the authorities following animal abuse allegations but there was no discussion of the ethics of white tigers in general. Then you come to Asian lions in another grotto style enclosure that has been modernised. There are side windows in mock rock walls and wooden fencing along the front with limited viewing windows including at ground level for those who cannot see through at the higher level. You now come along the back of the elephant house getting a glimpse of the enclosure. Turning up to go along the back of these former grotto enclosures you can see the coati enclosure which is visible outside the zoo. Another straight path takes you past aviary style enclosures for Caucasian leopard - which I believe is the same as Persian leopard - labeled as the rarest leopard subspecies and Eurasian lynx. The cages are high but don’t have a huge amount of ground space. The lynx cage is divided in two and has a landscape painted on the concrete walls along the back of the enclosure.
The elephant enclosure is clearly not ideal. I do appreciate they have two (presumably elderly?) animals and I guess that elephants aren’t part of their long term plans. There are attempts at enrichment but perhaps large amounts of sand substrate and even more enrichment would be beneficial but I don’t like to judge husbandry on one viewing. The bathing pool was drained of water. The Sala degli Elefanti (access from near the lions) was closed and there was no internal viewing of the elephants that I could see. On other side of the house you can see common hippos or amphibian hippos as they are called in Italian and in English too on the zoo map. My initial thoughts were that although there isn’t much land area and the pool is somewhat shallow, despite much criticism I’ve heard, the enclosure is not significantly worse than some very flashy and expensive hippo enclosures which prioritise underwater viewing over meaningful land area for the animals. The water struck me as being very clear which seemed odd as I thought hippos defecate pretty much as soon as they enter water hence common complaints about hippos in dirty water. A circle of terraced paddocks with stables at the centre house guanaco, kulan and Bactrian camel. The camel paddock is flat.There are two large ponds for aquatic birds but I didn’t really see many - flamingos were confined to a pen which was quite far from the path. A nice moment of discovery was spotting a bear on the horizon looking at me through the foliage as if there was no barrier. That was special. The bear enclosure is one of the most well known exhibits at Rome and it is well done. There are different viewing points but not that many and another more basic enclosure which is easily missed houses two - I think formerly three - brown bears rescued from Albania. The limited viewing idea has definite benefits but on a busy day could be awful trying to see anything here. There is underwater viewing from a sheltered area and you can see into the enclosure beyond but the windows were rather dirty and water stained. You then come to the underpass to the second, smaller part of the zoo. Before I describe that section I’ll mention two last enclosures on this side. Facing the camels are two iron barred enclosures for cassowary. I saw one. They were very nicely landscaped with a lush tropical feel, again with limited viewing areas. In contrast I found the two pygmy hippo pens which are nearby somewhat barren and underwhelming and reminiscent of the pygmy hippo enclosure at London where the tigers now are.
Going down and through the underpass you stand at the foot of a long steep staircase with the famous aviary at the top. Fortunately you don’t have to take the steps as there are paths leading up on either side. I took the left side and walked up the quiet path to the wolf enclosure. It’s a relatively long but narrow rectangle with wood fronting giving limited viewing. There is more informative signage here including of course the legend of Romulus and Remus. A covered viewing shelter has large windows looking into the enclosure. There’s lots of space here with not a lot happening and on a quiet day it felt very lonely and a bit neglected. And I’m an introvert who usually enjoys quiet zoo visits. Hidden away in a corner are banteng in a standard sandy paddock on the zoo’s periphery overlooked by embassies and grand houses. It reminded me a bit of Barcelona Zoo. Ground hornbill can be seen - although I didn’t actually see any - in a curved aviary which was no doubt originally a row of several aviaries. Even if they are combined it’s still not huge. Which brings me to another well-known Rome enclosure, the dome-shaped aviary. I didn’t find this hugely attractive due to the relatively poor landscaping - the floor area is rather small and there are lots of birds inside. Next to the aviary is the relatively new orang utan enclosure. It is a rectangular building with a covered viewing area and large glass windows looking into a fairly rich environment with natural substrate, enrichment activities and lots of climbing and swinging opportunities. It seemed an appropriate space for the two female orang utans. There is an overhead caged walkway leading to the original indoor housing. The open topped enclosure for four chimpanzees is attractive. My only thought was that maybe it could benefit from more climbing opportunities. From memory there are two sheltered viewing areas as well as a raised viewing point to the rear which is easily missed. The Komodo dragon enclosure is another one away in a corner. It’s a standard indoor Komodo dragon set up but viewing is from the outside. I felt it was a bit on the small side. The path to the reptile house leads past a glass fronted paddock for maned wolf and then smallish unspectacular enclosures for fennec fox- seen inside in a small tiled enclosure and meerkat. The reptile house is a round building with some additions to the side so on entering the first thing you experience is a walk-through scarlet ibis and roseate spoonbill aviary. At the end of this is a green house style enclosure for radiated tortoise and Aldabra giant tortoise. You then go down a rather spooky and dark mock rock corridor before entering the central domed area - the hole in the doughnut of the reptile house. This extremely humid area has a curving walkway over Nile crocodile, African dwarf crocodile and red footed tortoise. This walkway goes up to a standard reptile house setup with some windows also looking out from the ‘doughnut’ into the ‘hole’. Unfortunately I didn’t keep a species list at this point. I hadn’t had lunch and was tired and hungry so slightly rushed through this area. That completes the review. A thought on rescue animals. I have mixed thoughts on this. Only counting the ones I know of, there are rescued brown bears from Albania, an elephant from a circus and a white tiger from private ownership. On the one hand it is great that animals that might have been maltreated in the past can live out their lives in greater peace and comfort. On the other hand, with the case of the tiger in particular I can’t help thinking that the space could be better used for furthering Sumatran tiger conservation and welfare. As has been noted by others, the zoo will never be Rome’s foremost attraction but it definitely merits a visit. In terms of visitor facilities, the catering outlets were closed for refurbishment so I can’t comment on them - I can say that unfortunately the toilets were a bit grim. Perhaps unsurprisingly a Monday in December was a very quiet time to visit. I generally love a quiet zoo visit - definitely preferable to fighting through crowds - but on the day of my visit the hazy winter sunshine fading into cloud and the sometimes almost eery quietness gave it a slightly melancholy feel. Personally I didn’t see any obvious stereotyping in any species and my only welfare concerns were raised by the condition of some of that Japanese macaques but not knowing the details I wouldn’t make any criticisms here. A final thought on the name. I understand they might want to draw a line under their past and changing their name is a way of doing that but personally I feel we should embrace the word zoo, as Jersey recently did once more for example. I always think Biopark sounds like some kind of water filtration plant with a visitor centre attached.
If the future the Lynxes and (but I'm not sure) the Leopards will get new exhibits. And yes, the Macaque exhibit is definitely substandard.
Nothing at the moment and I strongly doubt that something will happen this year or next year. The situation is really bad.
