Article about this park - anybody ever been there ? : Malkia Park offers sanctuary for retired circus animals - spectator.sme.sk
Yes. I have been here.The place looked almost brand new when I visited about three years ago and there was a lot of new enclosures still being constructed. There is a pretty comprehensive collection of big cats (including clouded leopards) and a large number of them. I am pretty certain that many of the animals have been bought (as well as rescued presumably) and there were several young big cats which would probably have been bred there - including a young tiger being hand-reared. The place is pretty slick but very functional. I was impressed by the scale of it and by the amount of money that must have been ploughed into it. I don't think their aims are quite as compassionate as their publicity would have you believe but I don't doubt that some animals have been rehomed here from inferior holdings. I'll add a species list when I dig out my notes.
I tried to visit this place in April on friday, but out of season, zoo is open only on saturdays and sundays. Assessing through the fence buildings and enclosures look solid and tidy. For a moment we talked with a nice girl who gave us folders and maps. Admission ticket is quite expensive (10 euro) compared to the best Slovakian zoo (Bojnice -8, Bratislava -7, Košice -5). As Paradoxurus wrote, a lot of money was put into this place, but is another side of Malkia. There are rumors that this is a place associated with a mafia group. Kind of laundry dirty money. Some persons from Slovakian zoo world tried to explain it, but there were pressures from authorities not to touch this matter. Certainly some animals arrived with false documents. And some came from good zoos. According to map zoo keeps mainly cats: tigers, lions (of course also white) leopards (also snow and clouded) lynxes, caracals, jaguars, couguars, servals, cheetahs – in total twenty enclosures for cats. Also bears and wolves, some hoofed mammals, some monkeys, some small mammals and birds.
Guys, my apology - I just wrote a loooong article about my visit in Malkia for my Facebook account, but only in Czech. So this time only "Google translate", sorry. I am too busy to prepare English version... It took me several years to notice the existence of a new (founded 2016) animal park between Bratislava and Dunajská Streda - while I just gasped when visiting their website. The park focuses on my beloved big beasts! In addition to lions and tigers, you will also find wolves, including black ones. Super mega attractive destination! But I was a little hesitant to visit. It has a rather strange reputation.. It is not known exactly how they came to the animals - they claim that it is a rescue from unsuitable private farms or circuses. But, for example, the origin of the irbis is still somewhat unclear. In addition, they did not start quite well - they basically started as a typical petting zoo, still you will find photos where baby tigers are separated in low pens. I also saw gossip that it is basically a hobby that is financed by a Slovak mobster (for his wife). After all, I decided to give it a try. And I would almost - with exaggeration - exclaim that if the mobsters were building similar enclosures in the Czech Republic, I would not be angry. The zoo is definitely not a for-profit facility. Although the entrance fee is quite high (in my opinion, EUR 10 is quite enough for Slovak conditions), in my opinion there is not the slightest chance that Malkia will be able to finance its operation. The park is tidy, it was full of active employees, the cats certainly eat expensive meat, someone piled incredible money into the construction and maintenance of the paddocks. In addition, it is still evolving, the existing enclosures have been reconstructed, and new ones are obviously planned. In any case, they are definitely not petting park, the animals are kept contactless. In addition, it is reported that all animals are castrated and they definitely do not want to breed them. Basically, every animal has a sign about how this species is abused, threatened, what specifically happened to the individual, or how he got to them. The park sharply opposes circuses, emphasizing threats in the wilderness. Some of the animals clearly have a health problem - they took on, for example, two tigresses that temporarily lived in the Liberec Zoo. And although their enclosure in Malkia Park is among the worse (a new one is planned for them), it is definitely heaven compared the conditions in Liberec…: / Which animals are kept? So many attractive ones. You will find mainly big cats: jaguars (black and yellow), cheetahs, cougars, leopards, leopards (black and yellow). But prims are mainly played by lions and tigers - both white and normally colored. Of the smaller cats: lynx, caracals, servals, ocelots. You will see foxes (red, both ginger and silver), wolves (Eurasian and Canadian live together), hyenas. However, the ungulates are minimal: llamas, camels, zebras, donkeys, kangaroos, capybaras, mares from other animals, a small collection of monkeys and lemurs (approx. 3 species of lemurs, painting, gibbons), ferrets, chinchillas. There is a small collection of birds - ducks and swans live happily on the pond, next to them there is an aviary with a snowy owl, they have a chicken, one species of macaw,, a kingfisher, some smaller species of parrots. Of the reptiles, I noticed only a snapping turtle Especially in cats, often without identifying subspecies, because they are probably not even known about. Facilities for people: yes, nice quality. Beautiful well-kept toilets, perfect cleaning of the entire space, its planting with honey and pylon-bearing shrubs and plants (but they will continue to grow for some time: D), several bistros with a fairly solid offer. Uniform visual style (quite cute picket fence + ocher yellow color of buildings). But for us it was absolutely deadly empty in the park, about five to ten visitors marched there! The staff was outnumbering us
Part II Now for what you are most interested in, the paddocks. Please I am interested in zoos for many years, but I am not an expert, ok? But I was so excited in Malkia! I would divide the enclosures into three types. Jihlava type - enclosures like Jihlava leopards. Walls around the perimeter, networking at the top, windows for viewing and photography. Dvorec u Borovan type - basically huge cages. Type "classic zoo" - open sky, glass in the foreground, a wall in the background, set by a fence with wires. In the first species you will find leopards, cougars, small cats, jaguars. I would divide the second - the first are really just cages, albeit large. There are only the Liberec tigers and some lionesses in them, it seemed rather temporary to me. And otherwise they are permanent, but really beautiful paddocks. The fence is simply used to enclose a huge area - typically for bears and wolves. Foxes and lynxes are clearly caged, but the enclosures are still huge. In the third type you will find mainly the biggest cats. What do these paddocks have in common? Someone thought about the design and function a lot, a lot, a lot, and really did his best to make it interesting for the animals. The paddocks are clean, tidy, maintained. The concept of all is similar: the edge is formed by lush grass, towards the middle grow different prospects, lush vegetation, in the middle there are trees, shrubs… parkos, footbridges, lying down. Just such nonsense that even though it is built on a green field and probably on a complete plane, someone artificially made small depressions and uneven terrain in the paddocks, so when a cat walks around the territory, it definitely does not walk on a boring plate. Each exhibition offers plenty of privacy and a place where the animal is not visible at all and has its quiet zone. What do I appreciate and what did I like so much? A lot of water! You will find water in almost every enclosure, the tigers have really deep tanks where the animal swims without any problems. Absolutely divine and what I miss in Czech zoos is the presence of parkos. To a much greater extent than in our zoos! Not only are there prospects, various elevated seating areas, but clearly wooden paths from one to the other above the terrain. The cat can thus decide whether to just take a walk on the branches… with leopards, they can walk almost the entire enclosure at this level. I was absolutely thrilled. I also saw elements for enrichment - a tiger has to climb a tall pole for meat, a bear has to throw goodies out of some kind of container. Thumbs up! And now be careful. Even those great exhibitions for the biggest cats (lions, tigers of all colors and perhaps even a cougar), which are quite nice in themselves and often surpass the Czech zoo in concept and size, have a connection to the Safari enclosure. The enclosure has an incredible 7,000 m2 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), it consists of overgrown parts, there is a swamp, the lake, a part reminiscent of the savannah, of course there is the possibility of climbing. The park alternates large cats in it, so they have a change, an adventure, chance to relax (there is not much to see in the Safari enclosure) and also olfactory sensations, because there were other cats before them, leaving their scent .. my jaw really dropped. Each outdoor cat enclosure also has a background, which is usually the size of a larger human room. Apparently, it is expected that the animals will be mainly outside. During my visit, I looked inside only symbolically and I was surprised that the interior was made up only of floors and walls, there was nothing else. However, it didn't bother me, it could easily have been a summer condition and before the winter, when heat loving cats will spend more time indoors, they can install some parkos, planks, laying wood chips on the ground. In addition, the park claims that it cools these areas during the summer. Animals? I repeat, I am not an expert. But they seemed curious, lively, in very good mental and physical condition. They activated, they were playing watching us, they seemed to be very relaxed…. Is it photographer friendly? Yes. But it's a challenge. A large number of paddocks have glasses - and once you have them, you can walk up to them and take pictures without any problems. However, in some cases, large enclosures (hyenas, foxes, wolves, bears, one enclosure with lions and one with Liberec tigresses) are formed by a fence - and of course there is a double fence, you can reach it at about 1.5 meters. And this is difficult for photography, because the animal must be at a very specific distance in order to shoot through the fence, but not too close. A separate chapter is photographing animals so that there are no signs of captivity behind them. Again: it works, but it's often a real challenge, mainly because of the fences in the background and I have already mentioned ocher color that the walls are painted with. In each enclosure, however, you will find an angle and a place where the background will be pretty natural (trunks, water, planting) - then it's about luck, whether the animal enters there, or waiting I can't say if Malkia Park is a mob project. I don't know. But I have to say that if I focuse just on the paddocks and the condition of the animals and the overal care, I was very excited and pleased
Very nice zoo in which you can also find a small dino park. very nicely done paddocks and the surrounding environment. If you are interested in what it looks like there, watch the video.
