The Moscow Zoo or Moskovsky Zoopark (russian: Московский зоопарк) 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 purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to z ...

founded in 1864 by professor-biologists, K.F. Rulje, S.A. Usov and A.P. Bogdanov, from the

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

. In 1919, the zoo was nationalized. In 1922, the ownership was transferred to the Government of Moscow and has remained under Moscow's control ever since. The zoo had an area of when it first opened, with 286 animals. In 1926, the zoo was expanded to adjacent lands, increasing the area to . The zoo's original buildings were wooden, built in the old Russian style with intricate wood trims. In 1990, the zoo was renovated. Notable additions include a new main entrance in the shape of a large rock castle, and a footbridge that connected the old (1864) and new (1926) properties of the zoo. Prior to construction of the footbridge, the zoo operated as two 'separate zoos' because the Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street divides the properties. In addition, the zoo was expanded once more. New exhibits were opened including a sea aquarium, an aviary, a creatures of the night exhibit, a sea lion exhibit and a section aimed at children. Waterfalls and streams were added throughout to give the zoo a more natural feeling. Giraffa camelopardalis 02

The Moscow zoo has over 7,500 animals representing about 1,000 species and covers an area of about . The zoo studies animal's behavior, feeding and reproduction, and breeds rare endangered species.

Moscow Zoo Museum

Founded in 2008 in a two-storey building of the 19th century, built in the late XIX - early XX centuries, located on the territory of the zoo. Since 2015, the museum has been open to the public and everyone. In the central and side halls there is an exposition devoted to the history of the Moscow Zoo and a natural science permanent exposition. The collection of the museum includes more than 10,000 zoo coat of arms from all over the world, hundreds of paintings, sculptures and drawings by the masters of Russian animalistics, such as

Vasily Vatagin Vasily Alekseyevich Vatagin (20 December 1883 – 31 May 1969) was a wildlife artist who worked on a variety of media producing paintings, sculpture, reliefs and illustrations. His works have been used in books and are installed in many institu ...

Alexei Komarov Alexei Komarov (born June 11, 1978) is a Russian former professional ice hockey defenceman. He played in the Russian Superleague for Dynamo Yekaterinburg, HC Spartak Moscow, HC Dynamo Moscow, HC MVD, Vityaz Chekhov and Krylya Sovetov Moscow. H ...

, Vadim Trofimov, Andrei Marts and Alexei Tsvetkov.

Research & Educational Center

The Moscow Zoo has her own educational institute and research center. In addition to full-training for zoo staff and teachers, there is a continuing education program for zoo and aquarium staff,

veterinarians A veterinarian (vet), also known as a veterinary surgeon or veterinary physician, is a medical professional who practices veterinary medicine. They manage a wide range of health conditions and injuries in non-human animals. Along with this, vet ...

, teachers and volunteers, as well as courses in zoo psychology. Since the Moscow Zoo has been chairman of all zoos in Russia since the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

period, it is a national training center. This was founded in 2017 by the current director Svetlana Akulova and

Björn Stenvers Björn Stenvers (born 25 May 1972, in Arnhem) is the CEO of the Eye Care Foundation. Before he was CEO at the Fonds de dotation de l’ICOM (of the International Council of Museums). He was the director of the foundation of the Official Museums ...

Animals & Exhibits

Old Territory exhibits

Flamingo Pond

Greater flamingo The greater flamingo (''Phoenicopterus roseus'') is the most widespread and largest species of the flamingo family. It is found in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and in southern Europe. Taxonomy The greater flamingo was desc ...

American flamingo The American flamingo (''Phoenicopterus ruber'') is a large species of flamingo closely related to the greater flamingo and Chilean flamingo native to the Neotropics. It was formerly considered conspecific with the greater flamingo, but that tre ...

Giraffe House

Reticulated giraffe The reticulated giraffe (''Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata'' or ''G. reticulata''), also known as the Somali giraffe, is a subspecies or species of giraffe native to the Horn of Africa. It lives in Somalia, southern Ethiopia, and northern K ...

Fauna of China

Giant panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes u ...

Bird World

Elephant Museum

Indian elephant The Indian elephant (''Elephas maximus indicus'') is one of four extant recognised subspecies of the Asian elephant and native to mainland Asia. Since 1986, the Asian elephant has been listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List as the wild pop ...

Rock hyrax The rock hyrax (; ''Procavia capensis''), also called dassie, Cape hyrax, rock rabbit, and (in the King James Bible) coney, is a medium-sized terrestrial mammal native to Africa and the Middle East. Commonly referred to in South Africa as the ...

New Territory exhibits

Animal Island

Outdoors: *

Asiatic lion The Asiatic lion is a population of '' Panthera leo leo'' that today survives in the wild only in India. Since the turn of the 20th century, its range has been restricted to Gir National Park and the surrounding areas in the Indian state of Gujar ...

Asian black bear The Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), also known as the Asiatic black bear, moon bear and white-chested bear, is a medium-sized bear species native to Asia that is largely adapted to an arboreal lifestyle. It lives in the Himalayas, so ...

Kamchatka brown bear The Kamchatka brown bear (''Ursus arctos beringianus''), also known as the "Far Eastern brown bear", or in russian: Камчатский бурый медведь, Kamchatsky bury medved, is a subspecies of brown bear. Description The Kamcha ...

Golden jackal The golden jackal (''Canis aureus''), also called common jackal, is a wolf-like canid that is native to Southeast Europe, Southwest Asia, South Asia, and regions of Southeast Asia. The golden jackal's coat varies in color from a pale creamy ...

* Tundra wolf * Striped hyena *

Siberian tiger The Siberian tiger or Amur tiger is a population of the tiger subspecies '' Panthera tigris tigris'' native to the Russian Far East, Northeast China and possibly North Korea. It once ranged throughout the Korean Peninsula, but currently inh ...

Indoors (Exotarium): *

Polar World

Polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear spec ...

Tur Hill

* East Caucasian tur

Animals of Africa

South African giraffe The South African giraffe or Cape giraffe (''Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa'') is a subspecies of giraffe found in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It has rounded or blotched spots, some with star-like extensions on a ligh ...

Grévy's zebra Grévy's zebra (''Equus grevyi''), also known as the imperial zebra, is the largest living wild equid and the most threatened of the three species of zebra, the other two being the plains zebra and the mountain zebra. Named after Jules Grév ...

Common ostrich The common ostrich (''Struthio camelus''), or simply ostrich, is a species of flightless bird native to certain large areas of Africa and is the largest living bird species. It is one of two extant species of ostriches, the only living members ...

* Slender-tailed meerkat *

Sable antelope The sable antelope (''Hippotragus niger'') is an antelope which inhabits wooded savanna in East and Southern Africa, from the south of Kenya to South Africa, with a separate population in Angola. Taxonomy The sable antelope shares the genus ''Hi ...

Kirk's dik-dik Kirk's dik-dik (''Madoqua kirkii'') is a small antelope native to Eastern Africa and one of four species of dik-dik antelope. It is believed to have six subspecies and possibly a seventh existing in southwest Africa. Dik-diks are herbivores, ty ...

* Silver dik-dik

Former exhibits

Dolphinarium

From 2001 to 2014, a dolphinarium operated on the grounds of the zoo's old territory. The exhibit was dismantled following unsanitary conditions and improper husbandry procedures. *

Beluga whale The beluga whale () (''Delphinapterus leucas'') is an Arctic and sub-Arctic cetacean. It is one of two members of the family Monodontidae, along with the narwhal, and the only member of the genus ''Delphinapterus''. It is also known as the ...

Common bottlenose dolphin The common bottlenose dolphin or Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (''Tursiops truncatus'') is a wide-ranging marine mammal of the family Delphinidae. The common bottlenose dolphin is a very familiar dolphin due to the wide exposure it gets in captiv ...

Directors

Directors of the zoo have included: * Yakov Kalynovsky (1864-1867) * Alexey Usov (1867-1873) * Alexandr Maklakov (1878-1880) * Vladimir Popov (1878-1881) * laexandr Chelukanov (1881-1883) * Valdimir Vagner (1883-1886) * Nikolai Kulagin (1889-1894) * Alexandr Walter (1894-1895) * Nikolai Antuschevich (1895-1904) * Vladislav Pogorzhelsky (1904-1917) * Yury Belogolovy (1917-1919) *

Aleksandr Kots Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kots (German form Alexander Erich Kohts) (19 April 1880 – 7 September 1964) was a Soviet and Russian zoologist and founding director of the State Darwin Museum in Moscow. His wife was the animal behaviourist Nadezhda Lady ...

(1919-1924) * Mikhail Zavadovsky (1924-1928) * Sergey Novikov (1928-1932) * Eugeny Klemeck (1932-1935) * Lew Ovstrovsky (1935-1940) * Trophym Burdelev (1940-1950) * Sergey Butygin (1950-1951) * Igor Sosnovsky (1951-1977) * (1977-2013)

Notes

Sources

* Vera Chaplina ''True Stories from the Moscow Zoo'' (1970) Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey;

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari ...

, Inc. P. 152 (translated by Lila Pargment, Estel Titiev). * (in Russian)

External links

*
photography Moscow Zoo 2010
on zooinstitutes.com

on zooinstitutes.com
Moscow Zoo Academy
{{authority control 1864 establishments in the Russian Empire Zoos in Russia Buildings and structures in Moscow Tourist attractions in Moscow