Duisburg Zoo - Tiger exhibit

The exhibit for amur tigers in Duisburg Zoo, Germany. A very basic exhibit surrounded by a moat. It is a bit too small but at least extremely lush allowing the tigers to disappear completely from the visitors. The tiger exhibit opened in 1960.

July 2009

Thanks! I didn't remember it clearly.
Back in the days, they had an extremely large male there, maybe someone has pictures of him?

By now its a new pair (well, they are kept separate), but ElRoy is not so impressive like the tiger before.

Great set of pictures from Duisburg Toddy, and as always some very informative comments to the pictures from you. How big would you estimate this tiger enclosure to be (disregarding the water moat)?

About the size of Copenhagen´s? (Appr 400 - 500 sq meters in my opinion).

@Dan: It is hard to judge the size of this exhibit as you cannot see the back because of the dense vegetation. However, comparing it on the map of Duisburg Zoo I would say that 400 - 500 sq meters is a good guess.

Toddy, would you agree that this is one of the areas that Duisburg could inprove?
They make a big deal of tigers in danger on big boards (can't remember the exact wording), then you find the tiger (s) in this little enclose with more water than land.There is a big area nearby to expand the enclosure and make it more fitting for them, it might have looked ok back in 1960 but not now.

The tiger exhibit in Duisburg is not that bad but a bit too small for modern tiger keeping. So yes, I would say that the tiger exhibit is in the top-5 of the exhibits at Duisburg that need a renovation or a new exhibit. The area you refer to is where the former whale-pool is situated. The whales moved out in 2004 and Duisburg now has a large area free for develpment. I am not sure what they will do with it though...

Toddy said:

The tiger exhibit in Duisburg is not that bad but a bit too small for modern tiger keeping. So yes, I would say that the tiger exhibit is in the top-5 of the exhibits at Duisburg that need a renovation or a new exhibit. The area you refer to is where the former whale-pool is situated. The whales moved out in 2004 and Duisburg now has a large area free for develpment. I am not sure what they will do with it though...

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whales?! might be belugas maybe

One of them was indeed a beluga. The last two whales to leave Duisburg were the beluga Ferdinand and the commerson's dolphin Yogi. Both left the zoo in 2004 and went to Sea World San Diego thus ending the keeping of whales in Duisburg, except for the breeding group of bottlenosed dolphins that live in the Dolphinarium from 1995.

The pool is now walled of and I am curious to see what they will do with the area.

Toddy said:

One of them was indeed a beluga. The last two whales to leave Duisburg were the beluga Ferdinand and the commerson's dolphin Yogi. Both left the zoo in 2004 and went to Sea World San Diego thus ending the keeping of whales in Duisburg, except for the breeding group of bottlenosed dolphins that live in the Dolphinarium from 1995.

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...and the Orinoco River Dolphin in the Rio Negro house, of course!


I've seen Belugas and Commerson's in the US but just missed them at Duisburg when I first went in 2004 - we spoke to fellow Zoochatter-in-waiting Baldur at the weekend (it was the week of the Arnhem Zoohistorica meeting) and he showed us pictures of them at Duisburg taken that week, we visited a couple of days later and they'd gone! Had to make do with the River Dolphins and Bottlenoses.