The Betzenberg Wildlife Park (german: Wildpark am Betzenberg) in

Kaiserslautern Kaiserslautern (; Palatinate German: ''Lautre'') is a city in southwest Germany, located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate Forest. The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfur ...

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 ...

, was founded in 1970 with the aim of enabling the population to observe native species of animals - including those that used to live wild around Kaiserslautern but are no longer native there today. Wildpark_KL_Waldschule

Today the park also has a role in protecting species that are threatened by extinction, such as the

Wisent The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...

and other endangered animals. The park is home to

owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

mouflon The mouflon (''Ovis gmelini'') is a wild sheep native to Cyprus, the Caspian Sea, Caspian region from eastern Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. It is thought to be the ancestor of all modern domestic sheep breeds. Taxonomy ''Ovis gmelini'' ...

bred back Breeding back is a form of artificial selection by the deliberate selective breeding of domestic (but not exclusively) animals, in an attempt to achieve an animal breed with a phenotype that resembles a wild type ancestor, usually one that has ...

tarpan The term tarpan (''Equus ferus ferus'') refers to free-ranging horses of the Russian steppe from the 18th to the 20th century. It is generally unknown whether those horses represented genuine wild horses, feral domestic horses or hybrids. The las ...

aurochs The aurochs (''Bos primigenius'') ( or ) is an extinct cattle species, considered to be the wild ancestor of modern domestic cattle. With a shoulder height of up to in bulls and in cows, it was one of the largest herbivores in the Holocen ...

and other animals. It also has a woodland school in the middle of an old forest that, in places is 120 years old, as well as the ''Eichenkranz'', a stand of trees estimated to be about 300 years old. The park is open all year round and entry is free.

Notes

Kaiserslautern

Betzenberg The Betzenberg () is a 285-metre-high hill in the German city of Kaiserslautern. It rises about 50 metres above the city and gives its name to the quarter in which it stands. It was well known because it also gave its name to what is now the Frit ...

Zoos established in 1970 Wildlife parks {{Kaiserslautern-geo-stub