Peru’s first zoo, Parque de las Leyendas was founded in 1964, and has since been showcasing a large variety of animals. The zoo is located in the district of San Miguel, and is seen as Lima’s ‘city zoo’ (as opposed to Huachipa, which is more than an hour’s drive away). With extensive grounds which include several museums, botanical gardens, archaeological ruins and an artificial lake, Parque de las Leyendas is a very popular attraction within the city. The zoo is divided into four zones: Zona Costa (Coastal), Zona Selva (Forest), Zona Sierra (Mountains), and the Zona Internacional. Just before leaving Bolivia, I had been involved in an accident which broke my left leg quite badly. I underwent surgery in La Paz and spent a week in hospital. Eventually my travel insurance company allowed me to spend the last few days of the holiday in Lima. My first morning out of hospital, I decided to practise using my crutches and got a taxi to drop me at the zoo. I was impressed by their disabled facilities; wheelchairs were available, most staircases had ramps nearby, and steeper paths were equipped with handrails. Despite all of this, I spent over seven hours at the zoo and still had to completely miss out the Zona Sierra due to lack of time. After paying 9 nuevo soles for a ticket, I got on a little train which gives a brief tour of the zoo, past museums, gardens with amazing topiary, animals, huacas (Inca ruins) and the artificial lake. After working out a route around the zoo which would let me see everything, I decided to swing over to the Zona Costa. The first attraction in the Zona Costa was a bridge over an enormous enclosure for White-tailed Deer and Mara, near a separate large enclosure for a small group of Culpeo Foxes. Further ahead was a large aviary for seabirds, which was home to a large group of Humboldt Penguins, some Peruvian Boobies, Brown Pelicans and Guanay Cormorants. Past a couple of lethargic American Crocodiles and small aviaries for Harris’ and Variable Hawks, I got to the Mini Zoo, a small kid’s zone consisting of a central paddock surrounded by several small glass-fronted enclosures and a small owl aviary. Inhabitants of the side enclosures included Pygmy Hedgehogs, a Florida Soft-shelled Turtle, Armadillos of two different species, and a lone African Collared Dove. The main central paddock held a variety of animals, including White-winged Trumpeters, Helmeted Guineafowl, Guinea pigs (not helmeted), Franklin’s Gulls, chickens, rabbits, various ducks, macaws and amazons. For many, the highlight of the Zona Costa is the sealion exhibit. A series of reasonably-sized tanks with underwater viewing are home to a group of active Patagonian Sealions, with shows held daily. The huge bull seems to have a large crowd almost constantly watching from around his tank. A path leads away from the sealions and towards the Zona Internacional. A series of small gardens for endangered plants line the paths near the entrance to the Botanical gardens, attracting many wild Amazilia hummingbirds and Guayaquil Squirrels. The stars of the International area are the lions and tigers. Housed in primitive cages when I visited, construction on a large felinarium is currently underway to offer better living conditions for the big cats in outdated enclosures. Many of the other inhabitants of the Zona Internacional either live in ancient cages, or grotto-like enclosures. Other animals in the area include chimpanzees, several old world monkeys, mouflon, giraffes, zebras, water buffalo, and three species of bear (Brown and American Black had spacious enclosures). A small museum near the Zona Internacional holds a variety of skeletons, butterfly cabinets and stuffed animals displayed in small dioramas. A side room also acts as a reptile house, housing iguanas, small caimans, corn snakes, boas, an invisible anaconda, and a variety of turtles, most notably a lone Matamata in a pretty dry pool. An aquarium next door was home to several small fish, some knifefish, a young Red-tailed catfish, more turtles and a small ray. After a brief snack I made my way over to the Zona Selva. The first area within this jungle zone was a group of parrot aviaries for Amazons, Pionus, Caiques and Macaws set around a courtyard. Further on, past enclosures for Jabiru, Peccaries and Horned Screamers, a large open area was split by a monkey island, a mixed-species island for Capuchins, Coatis, Agoutis and Capybara and a large tapir enclosure. Large aviaries circling the islands housed birds of prey. The main path through the Zona Selva crosses a couple of bridges onto islands populated by gift stands and other stalls, before heading into a darkened house with glass-fronted enclosures for various animals, including Black-headed Night Monkeys, Pacarana and Chaco Chacalacas. Enclosures for Neotropical River Otters, Caimans and Oncilla line the path as it winds towards the relatively large pair of enclosures for jaguars, both melanistic and spotted. The jaguars were among the most active groups I’ve ever seen, and were very playful, drawing a large crowd. A brief walk through the forested area leads to another group of glass-fronted enclosures, mostly for monkeys (including moustached tamarins, pygmy marmosets, Nancy Ma’s night monkeys and red howlers) as well as a few toucans (Cuvier’s and pairs of Curl-crested and Brown-mandibled Toucanets). The next large enclosure was for a group of active Spectacled Bears, again attracting many observers. The last couple of enclosures in the Zona Selva are for Ocelots and a very active group of Margays. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Cocks-of-the-rock at this zoo, despite them being used on zoo literature as a mascot, but there were many areas that I missed, so they may have got away from me this time. Overall, a tremendous range of wildlife, and kept in better conditions than I expected. Though much has yet to be improved (and the new felinario is a very good sign), the zoo has rightfully become one of Lima’s top attractions. One of the things I was pleased to hear before going was how proud the people of Lima are about their zoos, so clearly it’s very enjoyable too. A great introduction to Peru’s wildlife. Well done if you managed to get to the end of this hefty read. Photos will be posted soon, but I apologise for their generally poor quality in advance.
Thanks very much, I was really impressed by the collection and glad that I visited. Leg's a bit better, thanks for your kind wishes. I'm still not quite walking, but hopefully I'll be jumping about again soon.
estimado devilfish, I visited the parque de las leyendas back in august 2002. Back then there were cock of the rock in the bird section. There were also both species of sloths in the night section, a breeding group of white lipped peccaries. the zona sierra was mostly for south american "camelidos" which were llamas, alpacas, guanacos and a very nice herd of vicuñas. Also some bird of prey exhibits, the best of which were for the andean condors, of course. peru is a very poor country, so the parque de las leyendas is very good considering the low resources it must have. Alas i lost all my pictures of peru, so i hope you have good ones. Que mejore tu salud, colega.
Muchas gracias carlos, Unfortunately I didn't see the cock of the rock here, but saw one at Huachipa, did you go there? There was only a group of two-toed sloths in the night building when I visited, though they were interestingly quite pale in colour. I noticed some of Huachipa's sloths were similarly coloured. I also didn't see any white-lipped peccaries, though there were two groups of collared peccaries. Thanks again
