Prague Zoo celebrates 95th anniversary in 1930s style

Prague Zoo marked its 95th anniversary on 28 September, Czech Statehood Day, with 1930s-style costumes and hairstyles, street vendors hawking historical newspapers, and swing-era music and dance numbers. According to the zoo, more than nine thousand visitors attended the celebrations, helped along by a packed programme and warm Indian-summer weather.

New arrivals and plans for the future

Zoo director Lenka Poláková, together with the animal-care curators, spoke about the year's main new arrivals: a South African fur seal pup and five cheetah cubs. She said the zoo is also preparing several major projects, including finishing the “Arctida” exhibit for polar bears and seals, rebuilding the enclosures for Amur tigers and African openbill storks, and renovating the “Chambal” pavilion for endangered Indian gharials.

“We look back not only on the nearly hundred years of work by our predecessors, but above all we look to the future,” Lenka Poláková said in her speech.

15 years of the Przewalski's horse reintroduction project

A highlight of the celebration was the 15th anniversary of the “Return of the Wild Horses” project: the ambassadors of Mongolia and Kazakhstan attended the event. According to the zoo, the president of Mongolia has granted the zoo honorary patronage over the first-ever reintroduction of Przewalski's horses to the eastern part of the country, a project that could launch in 2028.

Congratulations from Prague's leadership

Prague Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda spoke at the ceremonial opening, recalling that he first visited the zoo at the age of three with his grandfather and has not missed a year since. He wished the zoo continued popularity and hoped it would soon welcome its one-and-a-half-millionth visitor. Deputy Mayor for the Environment Jana Komrsková thanked the zoo's staff, who she said had been through a difficult period of change but were marking the anniversary with joy and a determination to keep developing the zoo.

An anniversary exhibition and a look back at history

As part of the celebrations, a photo exhibition titled “95 Years of Prague Zoo” opened at the Education Centre near the main entrance, tracing the zoo's key milestones, the eras of its various directors, and three devastating floods. The ribbon was cut by former senior elephant keeper and animal inspector Zbyněk Šíša, director Lenka Poláková, and Karel Tupec, a cook aboard the Czechoslovak ship Jiskra, which carried the elephant Gulab from Bombay to Rijeka and then on to Prague in 1966.

Hundreds of guests also took part in themed feedings and meet-and-greets dedicated to the animals who stood at the zoo's origins: they remembered the legendary elephant Baby, the lioness Šárka, whose silhouette still adorns the zoo's logo, and Prague's first fur seals, Batul and Hita, donated to the zoo by actor Vlasta Burian.

Prague Zoo is open every day of the year from 9 a.m. In September it closes at 6 p.m., and from October its opening hours are cut by a further hour.

Around Prague, based on reporting by zoopraha.cz