The National Zoo in Rabat is very dear to me as it is the first zoo I have ever visited.
Back then it was very bad, with enclosures dating back to its opening in 1973, but I was too young to care.
They closed it somewhere between 2007 and 2010 to completely rebuild one at a different location, aiming to provide animals adequate exhibits. While not every single exhibit matches with modern husbandry standards, many of them are average to good and it is now a decent zoo.
I'll happily write down an extensive review if anyone is interested, but in the mean time, I'll just post a full species list.
I visited in 2012, 2018, 2019 and in september of 2022. A few interesting species have been lost over the years :
- African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus)
- Ayesha Double-spurred spurfowl (Pternistis bicalcaratus ayesha) - one rescued bird
- Beisa oryx (Oryx beisa) - Maybe they still have some but it wasn't signed and I didn't see any
- North African common genet (Genetta genetta afra)
- Campbell's guenon (Cercopithecus campbelli)
- Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus)
And probably a few other species I didn't notice on my first visit.
Mammals
That's all for the mammals. A very nice ingulate selection, with 4 gazelle species. They used to have 3 oryx species, now down to 2 sadly.
Next will be the birds
Back then it was very bad, with enclosures dating back to its opening in 1973, but I was too young to care.
They closed it somewhere between 2007 and 2010 to completely rebuild one at a different location, aiming to provide animals adequate exhibits. While not every single exhibit matches with modern husbandry standards, many of them are average to good and it is now a decent zoo.
I'll happily write down an extensive review if anyone is interested, but in the mean time, I'll just post a full species list.
I visited in 2012, 2018, 2019 and in september of 2022. A few interesting species have been lost over the years :
- African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus)
- Ayesha Double-spurred spurfowl (Pternistis bicalcaratus ayesha) - one rescued bird
- Beisa oryx (Oryx beisa) - Maybe they still have some but it wasn't signed and I didn't see any
- North African common genet (Genetta genetta afra)
- Campbell's guenon (Cercopithecus campbelli)
- Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus)
And probably a few other species I didn't notice on my first visit.
Mammals
- Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus)
- Atlas Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia lervia) - subspecies not specified, but it wouldn't make sense to source these sheep out of Morocco
- Barbary ground squirrel (Atlantoxerus getulus)
- Egyptian fruit bat (Rousettus aegyptiacus)
- Addax (Addax nasomaculatus) - Nice breeding group, 15+ individuals
- Meerkat (Suricata suricatta)
- Dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas) - I was told a few years back that these were NOT Moroccan dorcas but Egyptian ones. They keep two groups in two multi-species enclosures. Maybe they have both subspecies, maybe not.
- Addra gazelle (Nanger dama ruficollis) - Signed both on website and in the zoo as Mhorr gazelles, but looked like Addra gazelles with a bit more markings on the back leg than the Addra gazelles I had seen before. One could hope they are Nanger dama dama but it's highly unlikely so I would consider them Nanger dama ruficollis
- Cuvier's gazelle (Gazella cuvieri) - One small group with a younger individual and a very impressive male
- Thomson's gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii) - Only saw one individuals with the Giraffes
- Dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius)
- Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) - Only saw two individuals
- Scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah)
- Crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) - Two groups in different enclosures, one group is albino
- Fennec fox (Vulpes zerda)
- Red fox (Vulpes vulpes) - Probably of the barbara subspecies
- White lion (Panthera leo) - Replaced the cheetahs
- Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo)
- Southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum)
- Cape eland (Taurotragus oryx oryx) - With a really impressive blue stripeless bull
- Grant's zebra (Equus quagga bohemi)
- Watussi cattle
- Ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta)
- Giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis) - I'm lost in the Giraffe taxonomy debate, the animals were signed as non-subspecific anyway
- African elephant (Loxodonta africana) - One young individual. They used to have more but after an incident where a child died, it seems like they removed the bigger group
- Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) - In with the African elephant, wasn't there on my previous visits
- Tiger (Panthera tigris) - Mentionned as Siberian in local news, it was massive and certainly hairy but I'm not sure that's enough to be sure it's a Siberian one. Signed as P. Tigris.
- Mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx) - Signed as Papio hamadryas mandrillus...
- Striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena)
- Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) - Replaced the African wild dogs
- Caracal (Caracal caracal)
- Olive baboon (Papio anubis) - Not sure about these ones, signed as Doguera Baboons
- Red lechwe (Kobus leche leche) - Huge groups, 40+ individuals
- European otter (Lutra lutra)
- Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) - Not on-show at the moment
- African buffalo (Syncerus caffer)
- Patas monkey (Erythrocebus patas)
- Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
- Serval (Leptailurus serval)
- Ichneumon (Herpestes ichneumon)
- Red ruffed lemur (Varecia rubra) - Signed as Varecia variegata
- Black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata) - Signed as Varecia variegata variegata
- Atlas deer (Cervus elaphus barbarus) - There used to be 10+ individuals, this time I only saw 2.1
- Bennett's wallaby (Notamacropus rufogriseus)
- Patagonian mara (Dolichotis patagonum)
- Alpaca (Lama pacos)
- Common squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciuereus)
- Tufted capuchin (Sapajus apella)
- Lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris)
That's all for the mammals. A very nice ingulate selection, with 4 gazelle species. They used to have 3 oryx species, now down to 2 sadly.
Next will be the birds
