Tiergarten Schonbrunn

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Tiergarten Schonbrunn is a zoo located in Schonbrunn Park in Vienna, Austria. It was founded as a menagerie for royalty hence it is an old zoo. I really, really liked this zoo. There were no sub-standard enclosures and many excellent ones with the ABC animals along with many incredible rarities. I will be going through this zoo in the same way that I did Budapest Zoo with bullet point notes saying my opinions of it.



- The setting and surroundings of the zoo were very nice. It is within a park so the area around it is very nice and well landscaped. Within the zoo there is a fairly large forest area with a suspended pathway through the trees with views over the whole zoo and large areas of the city of Vienna. There are also a few species of wild birds with signage for those and also for the wild plants. Within the woodland area is a domestic animals section with a restaurant/café and also enclosures for arctic wolves and European lynx.



- The Aquarium and Crocodile house was very well done up overall with all of the tanks being nicely decorated and large. The most notable thing in this building though was a large tank for two huge arapaimas and some freshwater rays which had a walkthrough tunnel in it (I mean one of those ones that is often seen in shark tanks, does it have a proper name?) so there were views of the arapaimas swimming above and also the rays at the side.



- All of the herps were kept in very nice, large enclosures within the main reptile house building but also spread around other areas of the zoo. They were all very nice size enclosures which makes a change from quite a few places that keep reptiles in enclosures that are far too small. They were all very nicely planted as well and well decorated with water features, rock etc. Within the reptile house, a feature that I really liked was a large network of tunnels for leafcutter ants going all around it as well as the crocodile house and lots of harvesting areas dotted around often fairly far from the main bit of the leafcutter ants’ enclosure. Another thing that I really liked were lots of outdoor reptile enclosures for native reptile species all around the zoo which were again nice and large for the inhabitants. There was also a turtle pond with a tube like thing that visitors could look down to see eggs in a nest underground.



- One of the highlights of this zoo for me was the bird house; it isn’t huge but still holds quite a few rarities. It is divided into two main sections, both being rooms with free flying birds. The first one is for African savanna Species and is very nicely landscaped with a small pond with African Cichlids as well as nice substrate and plants with rockwork at either side. The species in it are blue-naped mousebird, malachite sunbird, white-fronted bee-eater, red-cheeked cordon-bleu, variable sunbird, kikuyu white-eye, black-winged lovebird, southern red-bishop, Melba finch, long-tailed paradise whydah, African jacana, and harlequin quail. The other main part of the bird house is for South American species which were: blue-backed manakin, white-fronted amazon, wattled jacana, sunbittern, blue-grey tanager, Brazilian tanager, blue-and-yellow tanager, purple honeycreeper, housefinch, ultramarine grosbeak, blue-black grassquit and green acouchi. The planting was very nicely and naturally done with a pond as well as natural looking logs and rockwork giving the room a very nice rainforest-y feeling. Some of the birds were difficult to spot but with some patience they came out eventually.



- The rainforest house is - in my opinion - the best part of the zoo. It is a very large tropical house that is divided onto two levels with various free flying birds and flying foxes as well as smaller exhibits dotted around. You come in at the top level and are greeted by the tops of various tropical trees growing from the bottom level with a view over the lush planting from a viewing deck-like platform. There are lots of free flying birds to be seen as well as flying foxes. The free-roaming species were white-rumped shama, Asian fairy bluebird, beautiful fruit dove, greater bornean crested fireback, spotted dove, pied imperial pigeon, crested partridge, nicobar pigeon, orange-bellied leafbird, Luzon bleeding heart, black-crested bulbul, scaly-breasted bulbul, blue-crowned hanging-parrot, java sparrow, oriental white-eye, large flying-fox, and Indian flying-fox. There were also many enclosures for species within the building which had fish, herps and invertebrates as well as some mammals such as a walkthrough cave for Seba’s bats, Asian short-clawed otters and Berlanger’s tree shrews. These were dotted around the upper area and also the lower area which was fairly large and could be accessed by a lift from the top area.



- Overall most of the exhibits around the zoo were of a very high standard with lots of very nice features and were a good size. Some of the paddocks for African hoofstock were a bit plain and not unusual but there was nothing very bad. Franz Joseph Land which is a polar exhibit with the main feature being the polar bears was very good with nice looking exhibits as well as lots of interesting interactive things for the guests. The same was true with exhibits all around the zoo such as the primate house, Indian Rhino exhibit, rat house etc.



-The desert house is a building that is separate from the zoo and is a few hundred meters from the zoo entrance in the same park as the zoo. It is a large glasshouse that is done up very nicely with plants, rockwork, substrate etc. There were some very cool looking plants that are probably quite interesting to someone who know plants but I don’t know anything about plants so can’t say more than them looking cool (there was one really cool and weird plant labelled as Welwitschia mirabilis with male and female parts labelled). There were also free flying bird species as well as some tanks for fish, herps and invertebrates and also one for round-eared elephant shrews. One particular tank that was nice was one for Garra rufa fish which visitors could put their hands in and then have the fish eat the dead skin off. The only complaint that I have with the desert house is that entrance is €5 for adults and €4 for children on top of the zoo entrance fee of €16.50 for adults and €8 for children.



Tiergarten Schonbrunn is definitely one of the best zoos in Europe and possibly the best zoo that I have visited. I would definitely recommend visiting this zoo if you are in Vienna (but to be honest I think anyone reading this would visit it if they were in Vienna regardless of my recommendation ) and it is worth going out of your way for. Overall, a fantastic collection of species in some fantastic exhibits.

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