Zoo Duisburg

Description

Located on the northern edge of the Duisburg city forest and bordering Mülheim an der Ruhr, Zoo Duisburg marks a green interface with the city and the university’s northern campus. The approximately 16-hectare site is connected by a planted landscape bridge over the A3 motorway and is divided into two halves.

The zoo was founded on 12 May 1934 by citizens of Duisburg. After a modest beginning with mainly native species, the facility grew considerably before the Second World War but was almost completely destroyed during the war; only a few animals survived. In the post-war period a full reconstruction took place: the aquarium was reopened and enclosures for large mammals as well as for seals and penguins were established. Significant extensions and new constructions shaped the institution in the following decades.

At the end of the 1950s the sponsorship changed, and an additional area beyond the railway and motorway was made accessible via a bridge. On the new site, among other things, the Äquatorium for animals from the equatorial region and a dolphinarium were created in the 1960s, the latter a first for Central Europe at the time. The keeping of various whale and dolphin species from capture expeditions later attracted criticism due to high mortality; the Walarium was ultimately closed and specialized collections were relocated. Since then the zoo has focused in particular on bottlenose dolphins and river dolphins.

Since the 1970s the zoo has continued to develop into a modern institution with numerous breeding successes for rare species and naturalistic enclosures. The keeping of koalas began in 1994, making Duisburg a leading location in Europe; the necessary food was supplied by air import. The tropical hall Rio Negro (2005) presents a South American rainforest with a former Amazon river dolphin, and since 2022 has been inhabited by Caribbean manatees. The aquarium was reopened in 2015 after extensive modernization; focal points include a large reef tank, jellyfish and seahorse displays, and an enclosure for Chinese giant salamanders.

Notable installations include modern elephant and tiger enclosures, spacious outdoor enclosures for spectacled bears, the world-significant fossa enclosure with coordinated conservation breeding (EEP, ISB), and the Chinese Garden, created in 1988 as a gift from the sister city Wuhan.

Organizationally, the zoo was integrated into the Duisburger Versorgungs- und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH (DVV) on 1 January 2019 and converted into Zoo Duisburg gGmbH on 15 August 2019 (shareholder structure: DVV 88.81%, Verein der Freunde des Duisburger Tierparks 10.92%, private shares and the zoo together 0.27%). A master plan presented in 2020 outlines a flexible 25-year investment and modernization strategy with a volume of approximately €76 million to further develop animal facilities, improve accessibility, and adapt the animal population to available housing space.

Zoo Duisburg has repeatedly been present in the media; it has also experienced serious incidents, for example the fatal outcome of an orangutan escape in August 2015 and the loss of several primates in March 2021 following pathological examination.