My European friend was telling me how in Germany some zoos are called tierparks rather than zoos, and how tierparks are generally much more spacious and full of trees and horticultural delights than zoos, which are smaller and more urban. Is this distinction universally true in Germany? Also, how do tierparks and zoos compare in terms of admission prices? Germany also has several Vogelparks, which I assume are birds only?
Vogelpark is literally "bird park" in English. So yes, generally mainly or exclusively birds Tierpark I can't really answer your question, however it translates through to "animal park" for us English speaking folk.
So far as I understand it, the terms Tierpark (animal park) and Zoologischer Garten (zoological garden) are interchangeable. Germany does also have Wildparks which appear to be what in England would be called Nature Reserves, but with the addition of captive native animals, sometimes domestic animals and visitor facilities like restaurants. A Vogelpark is simply a bird park or Bird Garden as we would call them in England.
Grant's Farm is a US zoo that calls itself a "Tier Park". The only difference I noted was that they served free beer and bratwurst.
While the term "park" historically suggests a more spacious and vegetated area, both Tierpark and Tiergarten (with the exception of the Tiergarten in Berlin, which is both a city district and a park within this district) are nowadays synonyms in German for the term zoo. Sometimes, Tierparks/-gärten are defined as being smaller and more focused on local wild species, but that is neither correct for many institutions these days (like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich or Nuremberg) nor is this notion supported by any German federal definition / law. In certain local Austrian legislation (like in Tyrol), Tierpark/-garten and Wildpark are defined as institutions that keep and showcase wild animals in public, but that are not zoos. A Wildpark focuses on local European species (usually red and fallow deer, wild boar, moufflon, European wolf, wildcat, lynx, sometimes wisent & moose as well as smaller mammals, birds and sometimes fish such as Common carp or trouts) as well as domestic animals (including Heck cattle, "tarpans" and ferrets) and a few exotic species, often introduced species (i.e. raccoon, nutria, mandarin duck, various pheasant species etc.). In Austria, this would be a category B or C zoo, according to the "Zoo-Verordnung". As already mentioned, a Vogelpark keeps and presents mainly birds.
That said, most German zoos that call themselves Tierpark/garten are often relatively spaciously set-up in a more natural forest setting (Cottbus, Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg, Goerlitz, Bern) than the park-like structure of most zoos. This is off-course no universal rule and nothing can define what is a tierpark and what is a zoo.
Regarding "spaciously" - since you can read German: Was ist der Unterschied zwischen Zoo und Tierpark? Einfach erklärt As previously mentioned: Tyrol can! ^^
Of course, the irony is that the only major collection in Tyrol is called a zoo, but broadly speaking fits the "wildpark model" quite well
Quite! If the Austrians have pinned down so precisely the difference between a zoo and a wildpark - just curious as to what they actually class this 'upmarket wildpark' (which calls itself a 'zoo'); as...?
