Berlin Zoos

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There is already a lot of information about Tierpark Berlin on line so I’ll just give my thoughts and opinions here. Overall, I liked it. Of course there are sub-standard bits, namely some of the enclosures in the Alfred-Brehm Haus and the sun bear enclosures – which are awful, but there are lots of good bits too. I liked the highland area because of the layout and the range of species and I thought the crocodile house was very well done. The vulture aviary and the gull aviary were really good too. There were lots of very nice birds in the pheasantry and I would have loved more time than I had to watch them. The free-roaming pelicans were another nice feature, as was the huge open area with camel paddocks, the nice wooded enclosures with the deer and various other hoofstock and the general gardens, landscaping and woodland areas – though I didn’t have the time to enjoy these areas as I could have. And as much as people criticise the ABH, it has lots of cool species and some nice enclosures on the inside – the same is true with the elephant house.



So although some sub-standard to really bad enclosures brought the overall enclosure quality of the Tierpark down, there are many very good bits and I think it is unfair to completely rule out Tierpark as a good zoo because of these areas. Tierpark gets a lot more criticism than other places in Europe (For example, I visited Ostrava Zoo this year and the carnivore building AKA the India House was worse than the ABH for enclosure size and quality in my opinion) and if you look at the overall picture, it really is a brilliant zoo. Not without faults by any means, but brilliant anyway.







The next day I visited Berlin Zoo and Aquarium. I got a combined ticket for both and went into the aquarium from inside the zoo so they aren’t two separate places in my head. The smaller size of the zoo meant I could see most of it in one day, though I did have to rush the aquarium a bit more than I would have liked. I thought the Zoo was better than the Tierpark overall, there weren’t any enclosures that were completely awful as there were in the Tierpark, though some of the paddocks for hoofstock were a bit on the small side and there were some rather small enclosures in the carnivore house and nocturnal house. The bird collection was another highlight with some really fantastic species, the pheasantry was very nice, but the bird house wasn’t. The visitor areas were too clinical and too much space was wasted on them that could have been used better for bigger aviaries for the birds. The walkthrough bits were good though and this – along with the great range of species – made up for the rather ugly bird house. The aquarium was brilliant, as was the hippo house and there were lots of very nice aviaries such as the condors, sea birds and waders. Most of the other bits were pretty average, barring those mentioned above



Some very nice enclosures mixed in with some more average ones, a very extensive and diverse collection including rarities makes Berlin Zoo a really fantastic zoo which I would rank slightly above the Tierpark. It is definitely the best general zoo I have been to and Weltvogelpark Walsrode which I visited the next day only beat it due to my particularly interest in birds.



I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to both of Berlin’s zoos and I saw hundreds of species I had never seen before with particular highlights being the Ruby-topaz Hummingbird, Marco Polo Sheep, Gerenuk, Harpy Eagle, Rusty-barred Owl, Catbird, Manucode, Springhare, Tuatara, Fruitcrow and lots more.







After my day at Berlin Zoo was quite a relaxed day which I was looking forward to after two long and tiring (though very enjoyable) days of zoos. There was no rush to get up early because we had a fairly short drive of around 330 km which is just over 200 miles. Looking at the road signs was fun because I saw many cities that I recognised because of the zoo though I couldn’t help but be slightly disappointed that we weren’t stopping at them. If I had my way, the drive to the UK would take months, stopping at hundreds of zoos on the way! The other cool thing about the drive was that we went on some roads with no speed limit.



The next day was spent in Weltvogelpark Walsrode and I had a further three hours the next morning before the drive to Amsterdam.

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