Leipzig Zoo

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The next day, after visiting Antwerp Zoo and Aquatopia was the longest drive of the trip: a roughly 650 km (approximately 400 mile) drive from Antwerp to Leipzig. The following day was a visit to Leipzig Zoo. For an idea of the layout of the zoo, see the map from the zoo website: http://www.zoo-leipzig.de/fileadmin/dateien/PDF/Ihr_Zoobesuch/Zooplan/map_of_the_zoo_2015.pdf

Leipzig Zoo

I spent pretty much the whole day in the zoo and thoroughly enjoyed it (though saying that is pretty superfluous as I always enjoy a visit to any zoo) and I enjoyed Leipzig more than most zoos. There have been various views on the zoo posted on ZooChat but I personally thought it was fantastic.

Gondwanaland was the highlight of the zoo for me. It is basically a vast indoor rainforest and the closest thing I have seen to a rainforest since I have actually been in one with fantastic planting that wouldn’t be out of place in the best botanical garden as well as the animals. I really liked the range of free-roaming species with 21 species of bird, 8 amphibian species, 5 reptile species and 1 mammal species with nice numbers of them and I felt this really complimented the species in enclosures which I thought blended very well into the general greenery and there weren’t any obvious cages at all. The boat ride was also good giving an additional view of Gondwanaland from the artificial rivers, as did the raised walkway. Overall, a brilliant exhibit in my opinion and although you could criticise the name ‘Gondwanaland’ because it’s not completely accurate for the species in the exhibit, I didn’t really have a problem with it as it is an excuse for putting all sorts of things in together that suited the general rainforest and it also ties in with what is shown in the tunnel area at the entrance and the tunnel part of the boat ride.

Though Gondwanaland wasn’t the only good exhibit in Leipzig Zoo by any means and I also really liked the whole Africa section. ‘Kiwara Savannah’ and Kiwara Kopje’ were very nicely themed but not too over themed in my opinion and although I still have some reservations about the mix in ‘Kiwara Kopje’ with Cheetahs, Patas Monkeys and Black Rhinos, there was signage explaining how the exhibit suited the needs of all three species with areas for each species to get away from the other two so only time will tell how successful the mix is. My experience of the Africa section was probably helped by the fact that it was very African weather (yes, I realise this is a generalisation. I have seen snow in Africa three times) with full sun and a clear blue sky with temperatures in the 30s (degrees C) getting as high as 35 (!).

I also liked Pongoland, the ape exhibit, despite the fact that I’m usually not interested in apes in zoos at all (the fact that it had free-flying birds helped of course). Additionally, the aquarium was also very good, as was the bird house, and I really liked the mixed flamingo aviary.

Having said that about the very good exhibits that dominated the zoo, there was one area that I thought wasn’t so good, namely the part of the zoo with Owl Aviaries, Red Pandas, Snow Leopards, Dall Sheep, Przewalski’s Horse, Maned Wolves, a few Deer and the Domestics section. This section looked run down and tired with many ugly looking enclosures and the enclosures for snow leopards were to a much lower standard than the rest of the zoo. Luckily, a new development is under construction of a Himalayas area where the Snow Leopards and Red Pandas will be moving to.

And of course no review of Leipzig Zoo would be complete without mentioning the species that the zoo is most famous for, the Chinese Pangolins.

They really are fantastic animals and I thought it was very good that the Zoo advertised the feeding time to give visitors a good chance of seeing them.

The other main attraction in the Elephant Temple where the Pangolins are held is the daily Asian Elephant bath where visitors can watch an elephant swimming underwater through underwater viewing and this was a really spectacular view.



So I thought Leipzig Zoo was really good overall and is definitely a must visit zoo. I think it has improved a lot recently and is nearing the end of the zoo’s master plan which was displayed in a small shed for visitors to see. I would rate Leipzig Zoo very highly - in the top ten zoos that I have personally visited - and although it can’t compete on diversity and number of species with the Berlin collections, if you disregard the species list, I thought Leipzig was better in terms of exhibit quality than either zoo in Berlin which are often rated much more highly by zoo nerds (though taking the number of species into account as well as the quality of the zoo, I think the Berlin zoos beat Leipzig). So a really great zoo overall!

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