Zürich Wilderness Park () is a wilderness park near the

city of Zürich Zurich (; ) is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The urban area was home to 1.45 mi ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. It includes the Sihlwald forest, the largest mixed deciduous and coniferous forest in the Swiss Mittelland, and the Langenberg Wildlife Park, the oldest Swiss wildlife park. Both sites are situated in the

Sihl Valley Sihl Valley ( German: ''Sihltal'') is a river valley and belongs to the Zimmerberg-Sihltal region located in the Horgen (district), district of Horgen in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland. Commonly ''Sihltal'' is used as the name of the Lower Sihl ...

to the south of Zürich, but are separated from each other by the town of Langnau am Albis.

History

The

received the Sihl forest, or Sihlwald, as a gift in 1309 from the Hapsburgers and again in 1524 through the dissolution of the Fraumünster convent. Over the following centuries, the forest provided Zürich with timber and firewood. However, the trees have not been felled since the 1990s; this is due to the actions of forest director Andreas Speich, in order to preserve the forest's unique composition. In 1869, Langenberg Wildlife Park was founded by the city forester Carl Anton Ludwig von Orelli. On August 28, 2009, the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) declared the Sihl forest a "regional nature park of national importance". The protection of Sihl forest was established through a forest reserve agreement in 2007 and a cantonal Protection Ordinance in 2008. The Zürich Wilderness Park was formed in 2009, by the merger of the Langenberg Wildlife Park and the Sihlwald forest. Today, the park welcomes more than half a million yearly visitors, who are encouraged to barbecue, hike, cycle, and even ride horseback through the park, as well as visit its museum and attend various outdoor events.

Sites

The Zürich Wilderness Park comprises two disconnected sites: * The Langenberg Wildlife Park, a

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

situated in the municipality of Langnau am Albis some south of Zürich. Langenberg is home to a zoo with 16 native or formerly native animals such as

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

beaver Beavers (genus ''Castor'') are large, semiaquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere. There are two existing species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-large ...

elk The elk (: ''elk'' or ''elks''; ''Cervus canadensis'') or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. ...

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

es,

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 Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, including the dog and dingo, though gr ...

European bison The European bison (: 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 bi ...

and

Przewalski’s horse Przewalski's horse (''Equus ferus przewalskii'' or ''Equus przewalskii''), also called the takhi, Mongolian wild horse or Dzungarian horse, is a rare and endangered wild horse originally native to the steppes of Central Asia. It is named after t ...

. * The Sihlwald forest, largely situated in the municipality of Horgen but also spreading into several adjoining municipalities. It is situated on both banks of the Sihl river, although mostly on the western slopes rising up to the Albis hills. The forest covers approximately and is between and south of Zürich. It is the only Swiss peri-urban nature reserve, and consists of mostly beech trees, some of which are up to 250 years old. The majority of the trees are about 120 years old. Both sites can be reached via rail service S4 of the

Zurich S-Bahn The Zurich S-Bahn () system is a network of rail lines that has been incrementally expanded to cover the ZVV area, which comprises the entire canton of Zurich and portions of neighbouring cantons (Aargau, Glarus, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, ...

, using Wildpark-Höfli station for the Langenberg Wildlife Park and Sihlwald station for the Sihlwald forest.

History

Sites

See also