Director´s view

Director´s view
Director´s view
Seriema, foto: Miroslav Bobek, Zoo Praha

At first it reminded me a bit of the tale The Fall of the Votický Family in Karel Čapek's Tales from Two Pockets. In it, Dr. Mejzlik, a police officer, is visited by Mr. Divíšek, an archivist, who asks him to help him with his work on the reign of King George of Poděbrady; specifically, the sinister goings on at Votica...

Thank you to everyone who helps Prague Zoo and to those who simply love it!  Miroslav Bobek  Prague Zoo Director

The covid-19 pandemic also adversely affected Prague Zoo in 2021. For the first 101 days of the year the zoo was completely closed, in the following weeks and months it was forced to come to terms with various restrictions and for a long time it had no foreign tourists. Thanks to the large interest from Czech visitors during the...

The baby in Mawar’s arms in one of the photos I took on the second day after its birth. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

As if I would have anticipated it. In spite of it being a holiday and that we had been closed for weeks due to COVID, I set off on the morning of November 17, 2020, to the zoo. As soon as I arrived, I received a message that Mawar, the female of Sumatran orangutan, had started to give birth. Before half past eleven the baby was...

Male Chinese pangolin Gun Bao. Photo: Taipei Zoo

Just as with many of our other plans, the covid-19 pandemic complicated and delayed the pangolins’ arrival to Prague Zoo. But now we know we’ll be able to welcome them at the end of March, when a pair of Chinese pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) will arrive from Taipei Zoo: a female, Run Hou Tang, and a male, Gun Bao.

Photo: Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

I spent my very first weekend as Prague Zoo’s director in the office. During that weekend I also wrote down ten points where I tried to define what our future approach to nature conservation projects for endangered species would be. These were and still are one of my priorities. Based on this document, we then started to...

Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

Prior to my last trip to Cameroon, one of the things I noted was that we should find out more about African palm weevils and their production. I wrote about them here a while ago: almost as thick as a finger and sometimes two index finger phalanges long, the larvae of Rhynchophorus phoenicis are a popular delicacy in some...

Griffon vulture and Egyptian vulture in the “Grand Restaurant Potočnica”. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

During our trip to the Eastern Rhodopes, we received news that the restaurant we intended to visit was very well stocked. Although none of the pastoralists or any of the surrounding villages had any fallen livestock to give, the abundance of offal from the nearest abattoir was more than enough to replace them. I should point out...

Mbama is just under three hundred kilometres from Yaoundé. Whereas in the capital the bushmeat vendors threw stones at me, in Mbama people were willing to be photographed with the pangolins... Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

For the first time in more than a year and a half, we visited Cameroon during the holidays. It was undoubtedly a rewarding trip, not least because at the end of it I signed a memorandum with the Cameroonian Minister of Forests and Fauna, Mr. Jules Ndoret Ndongo. This is a very significant step in the continued development of the...

Prague Zoo is the only facility outside of Asia that is open to the public and where it is possible to see the northern river terrapin in the flesh. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

It is not just one of the rarest and most beautiful terrapins in the world. On top of that, it's a terrapin with a story that has the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster: a shocking revelation, a desperate search, a spy hiding her true identity, intricate talks with superstitious villagers, tragedy, and a hint of a happy ending....

Foto: Miroslav Bobek, Zoo Praha

In Greek mythology the Echidna was half-woman and half-serpent. This is an excellent choice. Echidnas are very old and at first glance look like a sort of overgrown hedgehog or a small porcupine, however, although they are mammals, they still exhibit a number of reptilian traits, such as the presence of a cloaca, egg-laying and...