Petting Zoo at AQUAPALACE Čestlice (opening May 2024)

[Jana]

A new petting zoo is being buit adjoining areal of AQUAPALACE Čestlice - this is a popular water entertainment park with swimming pools with attendance of 1 milion annually. It´s located few km south of Prague on main highway and within huge shopping district.

They will have domestic animals and clearly don´t want to obtain zoo licence (you need a zoo licence in case you exhibit 20 wild animal species or more). But a job ad for head keeper mentions also "forest animals". I guess probably deer or similar low-maintenance natives in few species.

It should have keeper team of 7-9 people. The investor is financially strong group that runs entretainment parks. Synergy with Aquapalace can help it reach potentially very high attendance.

I have it close to my commuting way to work so will try to check the place in next days.

 

[Jana]

This petting zoo has not opened yet. So far it has finished only children playground, toilets, entrance and yourt, but no animals are on site.

Local municipality has decided it doesn´t want a petting zoo in this form and refuses to grant building permission. The investor ignores the municipality and continues with construction works anyway.

There is fresh media article about the story so far, unfortunately most of it is under paywall. From what I can read - it plans not only with domestics but with dama deer, wallabies, lamas, tamanduas/anteaters and lemurs. So basically a more luxurious version of a farmapark like Senohraby / U Toma / Zelcin.
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