Director´s view

Monsters and weird creatures from ancient legends and old bestiaries often are not just pure figments of the imagination but tend to have their real prototypes. As it has recently transpired this is also true about the sea monster, referred to as hafgufa in Norse sagas and manuscripts. Nevertheless, its mystery has been...

Thirteen film reels with almost five hours of footage, which is extremely valuable for us in Prague Zoo as well as for military historians. After a complicated investigation we managed to find their author. It was Col. Eng. Josef Zelinka.

I haven’t experienced such a well-attended press conference as on Thursday, February 23, in Prague Zoo, for a long time. We held it because of recently discovered films that captured our zoological garden in the early years of its existence. We wanted to identify the author of the films – an officer of the Czechoslovak Army...

I have written a lot about World Pangolin Day, which this year falls on this Saturday; and mostly these were sad texts on mass poaching of these amazing creatures and trafficking their scales. However, this time, of course, I dedicate my column to the Chinese pangolin female, which was born in Prague Zoo on Thursday, February 2....

I envied my Mongolian colleagues their traditional clothes: long, fur-lined daal and massive leather boots. We arrived to the very east of Mongolia, to Khalkhgol, in the “fourth nine” of the winter, that is in the harshest frosts. Night temperatures dropped to -40 °C and after the sunrise they slowly raised to -30, in the...

On Thursday morning I could see for the first time the newly born pangolin baby on the footage of the night camera. But I could hardly recognize only a part of the head and at a one point also the long curved claws of the left front leg. Fortunately, one hour later I could see it for a second with my own eyes. It was an amazing...

After two “COVID” years Prague Zoo returned to normal in 2022. Despite the lower number of foreign visitors and the deteriorating economic situation a high number of visitors returned: in 2022 a total of 1,419,122 visitors passed through its gates. In a way it was a breakthrough year in both a positive sense (the Dja Reserve...

I have recently posted a photo of a binturong on social networks. If you don’t know what it is and where it came from, you are not the only one. “My daughter wrote an essay on it in 4th grade, and the teacher scolded her that she made up the animal,” Mrs H. K. commented on the photo. And yet we have binturongs also in...

During my brief visit to Indonesian Jakarta I held several meetings, experienced a 5.6 magnitude earthquake and also quickly walked through two animal markets: the smaller street market Jatinegara and the larger Pramuka with a “department store” with four floors full of shops with thousands of bird cages.