Rabat Zoo ( ("Zoological Garden in Rabat"), ("The National Park for Animals in Rabat"); ), formerly known as "

Temara Temara () is a coastal city in Morocco. It is located in the region of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra, directly south of Rabat on the Atlantic coast, in the suburban area of the capital. The city with 313,510 inhabitants as of 2014 is the capital of Skhir ...

Zoo", is a zoological park near

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ) is the Capital (political), capital city of Morocco and the List of cities in Morocco, country's seventh-largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan population of over 1.2 million. ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

that was established in 1973. The first enclosures were built to house

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

s that were previously kept in the royal palace. These lions, believed to be descendants of the now-extinct

Barbary lion The Barbary lion was a population of the lion subspecies '' Panthera leo leo''. It was also called North African lion, Atlas lion, and Egyptian lion. It lived in the mountains and deserts of the Maghreb of North Africa from Morocco to Egypt. It ...

, form the ancestral line of the zoo’s current lion population. The Rabat Zoo focuses on a diverse range of African wild species, and more specifically, Moroccan animals with symbolic species such as the Atlas lion, desert gazelles, and the

bald ibis __NOTOC__ The small bird genus ''Geronticus'' belongs to the ibis subfamily Threskiornithinae. Its name is derived from the Greek ''gérontos'' (γέρωντος, "old man") in reference to the bald head of these dark-plumaged birds; in English, ...

, which have their last wild settlements in Morocco. The enclosures for these animal species were built in a manner similar to their natural habitats, with the goal of recreating the original living conditions and providing these animals with a natural expressive environment that aligns with their behaviors in the wild, avoiding the creation of artificial external ecosystems.

Conservation

The zoo works to establish viable populations of endangered animals in the long term, allowing for the strengthening of the animal collection and, consequently, the reintroduction of certain groups into their original natural habitats. It reportedly houses over 1,800 animals representing nearly 180 species and works on more than 22 conservation programs for rare and endangered endemic species. Eight of these species are the subject of a reintroduction program to reintegrate them into their natural habitat, including five species extinct in the wild in Morocco. In the first quarter of 2024, more than 70 animals of Moroccan and African endemic species were reportedly born at the zoo. In a statement, the zoo indicated that "these species are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered, critically endangered as is the case for the addax, or endangered for the bald ibis, or vulnerable such as the Barbary sheep and Dorcas gazelles."

Lions

Given that the Barbary lion is

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

in the wilderness, importance has been given to finding possible Barbary lions or descendants of the Barbary lion in captivity. So far, tests indicate the lions of the zoo are not pure Barbary lions, but descendants of the original Barbary lion. This is partly as members of the Moroccan royal family had kept lions that were captured from the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. They separate the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range, which stretches around through M ...

Gallery

File:A goat, Rabat- Morocco.jpg,

Goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope that is mostly kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the ...

File:Scimitar oryx, Rabat Zoo.jpg, Scimitar oryx File:Zoo rabat.jpg,

Giraffe The giraffe is a large Fauna of Africa, African even-toed ungulate, hoofed mammal belonging to the genus ''Giraffa.'' It is the Largest mammals#Even-toed Ungulates (Artiodactyla), tallest living terrestrial animal and the largest ruminant on ...

s File:Rhinoceros in the zoo of Rabat, Morocco.jpg,

White rhinoceros The white rhinoceros, also known as the white rhino or square-lipped rhinoceros (''Ceratotherium simum''), is the largest extant species of rhinoceros and the most Sociality, social of all rhino species, characterized by its wide mouth adapted f ...

File:Arctictis binturong 13.jpg,

Binturong The binturong (''Arctictis binturong'') (, ), also known as the bearcat, is a viverridae, viverrid native to South Asia, South and Southeast Asia. It is uncommon in much of its range, and has been assessed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on th ...

References

External links

Zoo Rabat, capital of Morocco

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Moroccan zoo is home to last of Atlas lions
(allegedly)
Parc Zoologique National ( Temara - Rabat ) - (2/2) الحديقة الوطنية للحيوانات
(in Arabic Organizations based in Rabat Zoos in Morocco 1973 establishments in Morocco Zoos established in 1973 {{Zoo-stub

Conservation

Lions

Gallery

See also

References

External links