This odd royal menagerie is owned by Albert II the Prince of Monaco. They have done some renovation but space is awfully limited as the zoo is practically built on a rock ledge overlooking the yacht harbour.
There really is no excuse for a place like this these days, especially when that part of the world is hardly short of money.
I think it's a shame because despite it being such a small site I think you could do some really interesting things taking advantage of the rock faces and varying elevation and focussing on birds and small mammals.
True, they really should reconsider the species list, but as the menagerie is owned by the Prince, and he controls every tiny bit in this small state, change is hard to make. Actually I heard they had a Rhino and a Gorilla not so many years ago but got rid of them due to space. But why they then brought in the Hippopotamus beats me! (unless it was in the collection at the same time as the rhino)
Not really, I guess. There are several zoos in the world which are bigger than the whole of Monaco, the world's second-smallest country. Furthermore, it's essentially a city-state with the only green spaces being parks. There are no fields or forests where you could build a zoo, and tearing down buildings would be a very laborious project when a country that small would probably be better off without a zoo, unless the zoo chooses to focuse only on small animals.
