The Nuremberg zoo is one of the most beautiful zoological gardens within Europe. It is situated in a huge, splendored park whose charcteristic features vary between rugged rock formations consisting of redish sandstone, hundreds of years old trees and idyllic wetlands and ponds. There is an unique interaction between flora, fauna and landscape that offers real fun and recreation for adults and kids as well.
The Tiergarten Nürnberg was shaped by former sandstone quarries and mixed forests of the ancient Nuremberg Reichswald. Today, ibexes, lions, tigers and polar bears are inhabiting these magnificient rocky backdrops, where you still can see those shattered stone blocks formed a long time ago, when the old quarries were still at work. Vast open landscapes are saturated with meadows and burst out with flowers every spring. The location of spring snwoflakes - below a mighty old oak next to the predator´s greenfield - is even a little treasure of nature.
The park´s natural topography with trees and woods also determines the stock of forest animals, which are normally living in an indigenous habitat from Franconia as far away as French Guayana.
As a part of the 20,000 hectar big Reichswald Forest, the Tiergarten Nürnberg offers home to more than 150 different native bird species and over 50 domestic mammals. With its focus on animals from tropical rain forests, the Tiergarten Nürnberg is a global bridge to forests in other countries all over the world: There are Malayan tapirs, Visayan spotted deer and Indian rhinoceri from Asian woodlands. And from South American forests, there are Lowland tapirs, Squirrel monkeys, Macaws, Harpy eagles and also sea cows (manatees). In the summer of 2011, with our manatees´ house, the rainforest has come to Franconia. South African rain forests on the other hand are represented at the Tiergarten Nürnberg by gorillas and Yellow-backed duikers.
At the foundation of the zoo at the current location in 1939, big ponds which represent a natural habitat for many indigenous waterfowl and fish were designed. The topic reaches from local freshwater to the course of tropical rivers and coastal regions up to the open sea. Starting with an focus on this, an appropriate animal stock was selected to correspond with: a Southern Europe´s Dalmatian pelican, a South-American Chilean flamingo, polar bears and penguins, otters and dolphins. In the dolphin lagoon, sea lions and dolphins swim together in an outdoor water landscape.
As well at the Aquapark, where sea lions, polar bears and penguins move around and enjoy themselves in water basins, that are completely transparent from below.
A landscape you rather would´t expect in our Central European region is the desert. Nevertheless, at the Tiergarten Nürnberg deserts, half deserts and steppes spread out and are picked as a topic standing for highly sensitive habitats. Hardly any other zoo supplies of so many and of such selected species from the arid environments of the world: the Grevy´s zebra, the Somali wild ass, Asia´s goitered gazelle, guanacos, Asiatic lions and cheetahs.
