Prague Zoo

The Prague Zoological Garden was founded in 1931. In 12 unique pavilions and more than 150 displays it keeps 5,375 animals of 678 species. Prague Zoo is one of the best breeding gardens and features high on the charts of the world’s best zoological gardens every year.

In 2020, we celebrated 15 years of cooperation with Prague Zoo

In the spring of 2020, two baby elephants were born in a span of a few weeks. The keepers gave them the names Amalee and Lakuna. They are Sinhalese names, i.e. originating from Sri Lanka, the homeland of their mothers, Tamara and Janita. The calves’ father is Ankhor. 

In June, Prague Zoo organised a naming ceremony for the baby elephants. Jan Juchelka, Komerční banka CEO, also attended the event and became the godfather to the older female calf, Lakuna. 

Lakuna means ‘a mark, spot, sign, token, badge’ in Sinhalese. “The meaning is that it is a good sign. We regarded the first calf as a good sign because she was born in a challenging period of time when the zoo was locked down. And she also is a good sign for the future of our elephant breeding,” explains Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo Director. It was a bit more complicated to find the name for the other calf but eventually, Amalee won by a single vote in the keepers’ voting. “This name does not have any special meaning in Sinhalese, but it does not need it anyway,” said Miroslav Bobek. “In short, both baby elephants are our ‘Prague Miracle’.” 

Prague Zoo has a long tradition of elephant keeping; the first calf was born there in 1993. African elephants followed. Today, the group comprises Indian elephants again; the two new females will stay in Prague and will give rise to a new family group here one day.

The Save the Tasmanian Devil Programme intended to save Sarcophilus harrisii, referred to as the Tasmanian devil, helps to protect this endangered species in the areas of its natural habitat.

One of the most interesting projects was the Wandering Bus, a nature conservation project intended to take the children living near the Dja Faunal Reserve in Cameroon to rescue centres where they had a chance to watch gorillas and also take part in educational activities.

Another major project was protection of the Egyptian vulture in the Balkans, operated by the Green Balkans organisation in Bulgaria. In the past few years funds provided by Prague Zoo helped to build three breeding and acclimatisation aviaries for vultures and also a feeding place. Since August 2017, the Bulgarian conservationists who protect these birds of prey have also had a four-wheel drive vehicle. They were able to buy it thanks to Prague Zoo’s cooperation with Komerční banka.

Return of the Wild Horses to the wild is another rescue project. The Central Asian Przewalski’s Horse (Equus przewalskii) is the very last surviving wild horse species. The world learned of its existence only in 1881 – but less than a hundred years later, at the turn of the 1970s, it had already been driven to extinction in the wild, surviving only in the care of zoological gardens. Extraordinary credit for the preservation of the Przewalski’s horse goes to Prague Zoo. Thanks to this rescue project more than 500 horses are now living in Mongolia in the wild, 194 of them in the Gobi B National Park, a strictly protected area.

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