Swedish Zoos

Swedish Zoo Fan

Swedish Zoo Fan

Well-Known Member
OK, i've created this thread so i can tell you everything about the zoos in Sweden. We don't have any sensational zoos here, but i will tell you everything about them.

Kolmården
Kolmården is the biggest zoo in Sweden and here we have a great safaripark with giraffes, zebras, ostriches, lions, bears and African wild dogs. We also have the only dolphinarium in Sweden here. Although, the show here is more like circus, so i don't like it. This year they will rebuild the dolphinarium and the seal exhibit. It will be called Marine World. Other rare animals that can be found here are: Lowland gorillas, dholes, Amur tigers, snow leopards, Asian elephants, rhinos and chimpanzees.

Borås Zoo
Borås Zoo is also a big zoo, but they don't have many species, unfortunely. They have a big savannah with giraffes, African elephants, buffalos, zebras, antilopes and ostriches. The rhinos share their exhibit with cheetahs and it works. The lion group is huge and is famous in Scandinavia. Here you can also find orangutans, penguins, seals, camels, African wild dogs, wolves, brown bears, tigers and deers.

Parken Zoo
Parken Zoo is located in Eskilstuna, a town in Sweden. The zoo is famous for the Asian lions and the white tigers. Other cats in the zoo are leopards, pumas, fishing cats, pallas cats and Sumatra tigers. The Sumatra tigers will come sometime during this year. You can also find the only pygmy hippos in Sweden here. They also have gibbons, tapirs, meerkats, armadillos, coatis and Komodo dragons. Their walkthrough exhibit with kangaroos is really cool.

Skansen
Skansen is my home zoo, in Stockholm. Here, they don't have any elephants or lions. Although, they have Scandinavian animals like brown bears, otters, wolverines, mooses, foxes and reindeers. Although, they also have the Skansen aquarium with baboons, lemurs, ground squirrels, crocodiles, snakes, fishes, sloths and insects.

Nordens Ark
Nordens Ark is located outside Gothenburg, a big town in Sweden. Here you can find rare species only. All of the animals here are rare in Scandinavian zoos. They have the only red pandas in Sweden. They also have snow leopards, amur leopards, amur tigers, maned wolves, Przewalski's wild horses, mountain goats, pudus and many rare bird species.

Ystad Zoo
Ystad Zoo is a small zoo with pretty common species like camels, zebras, ostriches, llamas, parrots, reptiles and antelopes. They also have a new exhibit for macaques. It's not a sensational zoo, but it looks very nice and i haven't visited it yet, unfortunely.

Furuvik
Furuvik is a great zoo with the only Sumatran orangutans in Scandinavia as the big highlight. Their chimpanzee exhibit is also very nice. Their tropical house is new and houses snakes, marmosets, birds, fishes, toads, insects and iguanas. Their newest future plan is to build the biggest primate park in Scandinavia, and they will try to get bonobos and lowland gorillas in the future. Other animals that you can find here are camels, gibbons, kangaroos, owls, emus, parrots and domestic animals.

Ölands Zoo
I haven't been to Ölands Zoo for ages now and i don't remember much. They have a nice crocodile house, tigers, lions, zebras, camels, chimpanzees, dingos and gibbons. I have to visit it soon again since they have a whole new chimpanzee exhibit. The old one was not so good and i really wanna see the new one.

So, these are only the major zoos in Sweden, and there are a lot of other smaller zoos in Sweden with Scandinavian animals only, but these are the best zoos here. If you wanna know something, just ask me. :)
 
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The rhino/cheetah mixed exhibit at Boras Zoo seems very intriguing...

Do you have any pictures of it?
 
1. Does "Gotland djurpark" (dont remember if thats the true name) exist still?

I spend my summers between 1999-2001 on Gotland and remember visiting this zoo on at least two occasions. I have a vague memory of what was there by the time and that included ring-tailed lemurs, Indian porcupine, guanaco, Eland, Barbary sheep, Emu, watusi cattle, red-necked wallaby and nutria.

I know that Skansen and Furuvik now got most of the ring-tailed Lemurs kept on Gotland and a few years ago I read that they had severe economic problems, looking around at the internet it dosent seems like the zoo still exist.

2. You happen to know whats happened with the Pygmy Lori sized in a department in Stockholm a while ago, heard that it was going to Malmo naturmuseum were another Pygmy Lori is kept.
 
CZJimmy said:
The rhino/cheetah mixed exhibit at Boras Zoo seems very intriguing...

Do you have any pictures of it?
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Just in case Swedish Zoo Fan doesn't, I have a few. I visited Boras in 2004, and really enjoyed the park. The two savannahs are great, and the apes and big cats also had nice enclosures. Like mentioned above, it doesn't hold many species, but it's a great zoo anyway.
The rhino/cheetah savannah is very interesting. Most of it looks like a traditional svannah, flat and grassy, just the way these animals like it. Part of it however, has en enclosed by a low wall of boulders. The cheetahs can jump over these easily, giving them them an area to get away from the rhinos.

Rhinoes - Two of the white rhinos. On the left, you can see part of the boulder wall.
Cheetah - A cheetah resting on a large boulder inside the enclosed area.
 
Furuvik wants to receive some gorillas and bonobos. Is there known in how many years, from where, bachelor male gorilla group?
 
john said:
Furuvik wants to receive some gorillas and bonobos. Is there known in how many years, from where, bachelor male gorilla group?
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They haven't built any enclosures yet so I can't imagine it will take place in the next few years. They have plans (studbook keeper contacted) about getting gorillas. There are no concrete plans for bonobos as of yet, other then a wish to include them in the collection later on.
 
Swedish Zoo Fan said:
OK, i've created this thread so i can tell you everything about the zoos in Sweden. We don't have any sensational zoos here, but i will tell you everything about them.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, Swedish Zoo Fan! So tell me, IF I wanted to do a big zoo tour of Europe and aimed to get to "Europe's 25 Best Zoos", would you be telling me that none of them are in Sweden? Kolmarden and Boras sound like they'd be possibles for this. Are they?
 
Even though the question is aimed at Swedish Zoo Fan I can´t help but to step in here and give you my two cents worth :rolleyes:.

"My credentials" will appear ridiculously bad, because the one and only visit I payed to Kolmården was about 40 years ago and the latest of my two visits to Borås was about 30 years ago. But hear me out!

I have, via the media, kept myself updated on these two zoos over the decades and of course thanks to The Internet I have especially been able to do so for the latest 15 years or so.

One strange thing that especially applies to Borås is that this zoo - and also to a certain extent Kolmården - is pretty much unchanged since my visits decades ago. This should sound like bad news but actually it is not!

If you happen to be familiar with my writings here on ZooChat, you will know that I have been constantly pushing these two zoos, not least by writing lots of comments in the gallery section. One reason for doing so is that I believe these two zoos must be rather important from a zoo-historical perspective.

Both were founded in the middle of the 1960s, first Borås then Kolmården. From the very outset the goal of these two zoos was to present animals in very big enclosures, with animal welfare as a big priority. I know that the importance of "space for animals in zoos" is constantly debated here on ZooChat and I suppose that Borås and Kolmården have influenced my stand on the subject very much. I want as big a space as possible for any animal in any zoo; I know there are many other factors that should be taken into consideration, but space in one of my main concerns.

The same applies to these both zoos and one of the wonderful things about them is that neither of them has - to my knowledge - ever had one single enclosure that is sub-standard from this point of view. Let me give you a few examples:

Borås Zoo:

Its main attraction, ever from the beginning, has been the six acre big African savanna. Since the 1960s an elephant herd has been kept in it together with numerous other species such as giraffe, sebra, antelopes of differnt kinds etc. This enclosure must have been pretty damn unique in the 1960s, I believe, and to a certain extent it still must be? Cape buffalo and elephants in the same enclosure, both species right now raising calves - how about that?! The lion exhibit is the same today as when it was created in the 1960s, about 1200 square meters big (a little less than 1/3 of an acre) but way back then it was pretty spectacular. A tiger exhibit of about the same size has been added after my visits. The brown bear enclosure, about 3000 square meters big I believe (3/4 of an acre), was also very good from a 1960s point of view. NOW - a new three acre enclosure is being planned. The close to two acre big savanna mixing cheetah with white rhino - does this combination of species exist anywhere else? The African wild dogs enjoy an enclosure of about the same size.

Kolmården:
Basically the same story here! An African savanna, slighty less big than that in Borås was there from the beginning. As was an Asian desert of about the same size. The polar bears were kept in a 3000 square meter big enclosure (3/4 of an acre), centred around a piece of natural mountain. This very exhibit were, however, deemed obsolete and not good enough in latter days; the zoo decided not to keep polar bears anymore and now keeps snow leopards in it instead. The worlds´s biggest (and un-netted) snow leopard enclosure in the world? One that gives the cats a 360 degree outlook to their surroundings - among other things they can watch is a nearby fjord. The tigers were also kept in a 3000 square meter big enclosure - now it has been upgraded to 4800 square meters and there are ten webcams that allow you to watch them 24/7.

The basic layout, however, is unchanged sinced I visited it. Some things have been added, mainly the drive-through and very big Safari Park - again an African savanna, a brown bear mixed with wolf enclosure and a few other "attractions". Also, the magnificent seal exhibit has definitely been added since I visited the zoo.

NOW:
Do any of these zoos belong on a European Top 25? I have no idea! Outside my own country I have only visited three zoos: Copenhagen (many, many, many times), Berlin Zoo (twice) and London (once). IF they do belong on such a list, I suppose that the two arguments would be the generous size of the enclosures ever from the creation of the two zoos and that none of them - as I have also mentioned before - do contain one single really bad enclosure/exhibit!

Well... perhaps I can think of one! The new gorilla island at Kolmården is not good! See the gallery! In general, from today´s standards, the great ape enclosures in these two zoos are not brilliant. They are not atrocities´in any way, but they are certainly not innovative in 2009. That would have to be my only criticism, I think.

Steel bars have never been used in these two zoos.

On the other hand, there are hardly any attempt at landscape architecture in any of the zoos. I have raised this subject many times here at ZooChat. Most exhibits/enclosures in Kolmården and Borås use moats to keep the animals inside. No attempts whatsoever at immersion. Remember my example of the 7000 square meter African wild dog at Borås? They are kept in a piece of genuine Swedish forest.

On a final note:
Both zoos were originally publicly owned. Borås still is. I would imagine that it must be supported by tax money but that the city of Borås calculates that the zoo still is an asset and that the number of tourists that it brings to the city makes the tax support worthwhile.

Kolmården was sold by the city of Norrköping to a commercial company in the entertainment business a few years ago and I suppose that this private company makes a profit by owning the zoo. The PR activities are a little bit more "aggressive" than Borås´s but as far as I can judge this new ownership has not brought about any negative changes for the zoo.
 
Thanks so much for the explanation and analysis, Dan. Tell me, since I have your attention, how far (in driving hours) from the Oresund Bridge would these 2 zoos (Borås and Kolmården) be?
 
ANyhuis said:
Thanks for the info, Swedish Zoo Fan! So tell me, IF I wanted to do a big zoo tour of Europe and aimed to get to "Europe's 25 Best Zoos", would you be telling me that none of them are in Sweden? Kolmarden and Boras sound like they'd be possibles for this. Are they?
Click to expand...

Perhaps the start of a new book Anyhuis or at least a new thread?
 
ANyhuis said:
Thanks so much for the explanation and analysis, Dan. Tell me, since I have your attention, how far (in driving hours) from the Oresund Bridge would these 2 zoos (Borås and Kolmården) be?
Click to expand...

Not a driver myself, I would still estimate it to something like four hours to Borås and six hours to Kolmården. Perhaps a little less than that.

Hmmm... you ARE planning a new book :cool:, aren´t you?
 
ANyhuis wrote:

"Planning" and having a contract with a publisher are two VERY different things!!"

I can imagine...

Best of luck anyway!
 
ANyhuis said:
"Planning" and having a contract with a publisher are two VERY different things!!



London, Marwell, Chester, Edinburgh, Whipsnade, Munich, Rome, Antwerp,
Amsterdam, Berlin Zoo, Berlin Tierpark, Prague, Budapest, Vienna
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Hello ANyhuis (not sure if my PMs sent properly because my browser keeps crashing)

I'd like to read your professional opinion on the UK zoos you visited (unless, of course, you're keeping it quiet until a book may be published)

*Sorry for taking the thread off track
 
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