THE SUMMER season opened in Slovakia’s oldest and biggest zoo in the town of Bojnice with several new attractions: a large terrarium with native African rocks that houses turtles, lizards, snakes and other reptiles and a living area for mini-mammals that live in baobab trunks. And five meerkats (Suricata suricatta) are another novelty at the Bojnice zoo.
On May 1, the opening day of the summer season, two elephants celebrated their 30th birthdays and on May 23 two organ-utans, among the most popular attractions with visitors, celebrated their birthdays as well: Yago turned 30 and his son Kiran was three years old. Kiran’s “godmother” is Lucia Barmošová, news anchor for TV JOJ, and his “godfather” is Bojnice mayor František Tám and both godparents came to celebrate the birthday. An especially attractive programme for children was prepared for the day.
Bojnice Zoo is the oldest in the country, opening in 1995, with an area of 41 hectares of which 20 hectares houses many exotic animals. The zoo is also known for breeding the largest number of species among all Slovak zoos with 3,020 animals from 376 species bred during its history, the TASR newswire wrote. Bojnice Zoo became a member of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) in 2003, a prestigious society uniting about 250 of the world’s zoos.
