Augsburg Zoo is a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for Conservation biology, conservation purposes. The term ''zoological g ...

located in the city of

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and with over 600,000 visitors annually, the zoo belongs to the 20 largest Zoos in Germany. Augsburg Zoo holds 1,600 animals belonging to 300 different species. Of those animals, the zoo keeps 100

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

s and

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s from 25 species. The zoo is involved in the 18

European Endangered Species Programme The EAZA Ex-situ Programme (EEP) is a population management and conservation programme by European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) for wild animals living in European zoos. The programme was formerly known as the European Endangered Species ...

History

Already in year 800, the town of Augsburg had tropical species of animals within its borders, when Emperor

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...

placed his

Asian elephant The Asian elephant (''Elephas maximus''), also known as the Asiatic elephant, is the only living species of the genus ''Elephas'' and is distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, from India in the west, Nepal in the no ...

Abul-Abbas Abul-Abbas ( – 810) was an Asian elephant brought back to the Carolingian emperor Charlemagne by his diplomat Isaac the Jew. The gift was from the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and symbolizes the beginning of Abbasid–Carolingian relation ...

., citing Hodges, Richard. (cf. ) An elephant was a gift to the emperor from the

caliph A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...

Ar-Rashid, and was walked from Italy through

Achen Pass Achen Pass (el. 941 n.) is a mountain pass in the Alps in the state of Bavaria in Germany. The pass is located in the southwest corner of the Miesbach district, about 1 km north of the border with Austria in the south of Bavaria. ...

to Germany, and later walked to

where the emperor preferred to keep his elephant. In 1410, an enclosure for

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

was established at the

city wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications with towers, bastions and gates ...

, those deer were shot by French soldiers in 1796 during the war of

War of the First Coalition The War of the First Coalition (french: Guerre de la Première Coalition) was a set of wars that several European powers fought between 1792 and 1797 initially against the Kingdom of France (1791-92), constitutional Kingdom of France and then t ...

. with the name ''Park der deutschen Tierwelt'' in order to display German animals. There were also plans to build a traditional Swabian farm, a project which was never realized. During the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, most parts of the zoo were destroyed, and the zoo was closed in 1943, and re-opened again in 1947. After the re-opening, the public showed an interest to see exotic animal species, hence the name was changed to ''Augsburger Tiergarten'' after World War II, and the first exotic animal species was introduced in the zoo. Zoo Augsburg, Südafrikanische Seebären.jpg, Zoo Augsburg, Seerobben Pavian Papio hamadryas Zoo Augsburg-12.jpg, Zoo Augsburg, Affengehege Zoo Augsburg (3).jpg, Zoo Augsburg (3) Zoo Augsburg, Erdmännchen 1.jpg, Zoo Augsburg, Erdmännchen 1 Zoo Augsburg, Erdmännchen 2.jpg, Zoo Augsburg, Erdmännchen 2 Augsburg Zoo - Ceratotherium simum 2.jpg, Zoo Augsburg, Nashorn

References

*Much of the content of this article comes fro
the equivalent German-language wikipedia article.
Retrieved on 12 December 2014. The following references are cited by that German-language article:

External links

* Zoos in Germany Buildings and structures in Augsburg {{Bavaria-geo-stub