J I H L A V A

Our ZOO

By Markata Kalabova

Today I would like to write you something about the Zoo in our town Jihlava. It is one of the most beautiful Zoos in the world so it is necessary to know some information. The Zoo is without bars so it is typical thing for it. But what was its beginning? Nothing is without work, so let us go to see the history of the zoo.

History of Zoo

The Zoo is situated in a very nice valley of the Jihlavka River. It is very difficult to find the beginning of the zoo. According to personal observes it started very unobtrusively. Perhaps we can mark 1957 like the birthday of the zoo, when some men established a small ingle zoo (zookoutek) with some animals, especially parrots and pheasants. The bears were there too. Other animals found new home in this small zoo, which grew very fast. When the headmaster - Vladislav Jirousek (now he is former one) arrived to Jihlava the first answer to his questions was in German. He decided not to stay here. But when he saw the valley for the zoo he was excited. The constitution of the animals was worse. There was an old lion, three legs puma, ponies, some monkeys, parrots. In short what was not good for somebody, it was good for Jihlava Zoo. Despite of these conditions, Jirousek accepted an offer and he became a headmaster of the Zoo in Jihlava. During many years the Zoo has changed a lot. It had to fight with unkindly clerks, shortage of money and natural disasters. Black Death was one of the big bad points of the Zoo. Infection went from one animal to another. The headmaster had to put to sleep all animals. It was awful especially for him, but for the zoo too. But let us go to mention some good points of the Zoo. It got a lot of medals, for example Honourable mention for deserving work in cultural field, or for working with young people and many others. In 1996 the completion of the Amazon pavilion was finished. There you can find some small monkeys, iguanas, some exotic fish like piranha or you can see small and very colourful frogs or very ugly spider (for me?) In 2003 the new village with the name Matongo (in translation it means the village in desert) started its existence. It consisted of a few little lodges (indianska chyse) according to models in Africa. There you can find a restaurant, or you can go to goat run, or see other animals even bats.

Funny stories of bears

The bears are animals which have been in the Zoo for a long time, maybe from the beginning. But the breeders experienced many troubles just with them. The couple of bears were from Vietnam. They wanted to stay outside during the night. No trick was successful to place them to their house. So they were outside. One evening a woman called that she saw a bear! A male Wang ran off. They had to look for it and after all effort they could not understand, how he ran off. Wang had to do another three successful attempts until they found the way it used. After the repairing of the wall it did not run off again.

The best year

The year 2003 was the most successful year for the Zoo. They reached uncommon growth of the attendance and they crossed the border of 230 thousand of attendants.

Nowadays

In the Zoo you can find a very big place for children, where they can do many things. For example there are a lot of swings, wall for climbing; the new is way for gokarts or you can try a very long and closed spiral slide. As regards animals you can see the typical animals for Zoo, which are tigers, leopards, monkeys, bears, zebras, antelopes, kangaroos, many kinds of ducks and other birds, reptiles like snakes and so on. Many actions take place in the Zoo. The day of the bird is very favourite day. It is on 1st April. In present days the organizers prepare many lectures about birds and people who have a surname which includes a name of some bird, have got free entrance. During the year the Zoo organizes a lot of activities for children especially on the Day of children, or in summer. If you want to, you can adopt some animal. It means you sent him money for fed.
I think it is necessary to visit the Jihlava Zoo!

Marketa Kalabova Zdroje – Zoo Jihlava, cesta od kolebky k dokonalosti.