site.bta135 Years of Sofia Zoo: Shift From Entertainment to Animal Conservation

Sofia Zoo was established оn May 13, 1888. It all started with a place within the park of the palace of Vrana. The zoological collection increased and, in 1887, with a decree of Prince Ferdinand, a site for a zoo was assigned in the Royal Botanical Garden at the outskirts of the city.

The zoo reflected the private taste of the ruler and the going trend for collecting animals. 

Prince Ferdinand was interested in natural history, especially in birds, insects, and botany. He used to spend a lot of time in the open collecting animals and plants. 

As to the public trend, a zoo included wild animals’ exhibition for fun and education. Wild animals were seen through the prism of game-breeding, sport, or animal husbandry. The new zoo was no exception to this concept: it was a menagerie, where animals – preferably exotic animals - were kept in cages for public exhibition and for scientific purposes.

Foreign experts personally recruited by Prince Ferdinand made decisions for the development of the zoo. Its first supervisor, Ernst Hublein was a sculptor by profession, and a keen taxidermist, stuffing the zoo animals that died. Paul Leverkuhn, a German physician and ornithologist, and Adolf Schumann, who was appointed Chief Inspector of the Zoological Garden in 1911, were involved in the development of the zoo and the Natural History Museum in Sofia. 

The first director of the zoo was Bernhard Kurzius (1862-1931), the Chief Royal Hunter, who managed the Sofia zoo for 40 years. The collections of the Zoological Garden in Sofia, and the gardens of Vrana, Euxinograd and Tzarska Bistritsa were all maintained under his guidance.

The above list of names explains why the annual log-book, in which information about the animals’ health status was registered, was kept in both German and Bulgarian, as shown in the website of the Sofia Zoo. 

From the very beginning, the zoo operated together with the National History Museum – both organizationally and personnel-wise.

Animals in the new zoo became gradually more varied. The first species - a black vulture – was followed by a deer, a pair of brown bears, a pair of lions, otters, dromedary camels, wapiti deer. The bears’ house, the long aviary for pheasants and peacocks were built, as well as the first pool for waterfowl, where pink pelicans, black swans, ducks, and geese swam. The high vault-like aviary for birds of prey was built in 1895. It was a home for bearded vultures, griffon vultures and black vultures. The bearded vultures had 13 offsprings, an accomplishment that made the Sofia Zoological Garden internationally known as the only place where this rare bird was bred in captivity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the terrarium was created, in which there were South European snakes and lizards, as well as a young crocodile brought as a present by a lady who had bought it at the World Exhibition in Chicago. In 1912, a male and a female Indian elephant were brought from Hagenbeck Tierpark in Hamburg. 

In 1935, the zoo used 24,000 sq. m. and had a total of 850 inhabitants of impressive variety: 46 species of mammals, 131 of birds and 12 species of reptiles. 

An article in the Venetz magazine (October 1943) described the zoo as a “precious scientific institution” and said that the revenue from admissions hardly covers a quarter of its costs. It also reported that the zoo had 250,000 visitors yearly.

After the WWII the zoo faced a new, literally, “existential” problem. Back in 1890 the site of the zoo was practically outside of the city. In the next decades, however, it was engulfed by rapid urban development. Half a century later, the city zoo was standing in the very center of the capital: a fact that created inconveniencies (and obviously ruled out any exapansion). Solving the problem took some time. A new home for the zoo was found, and after long (15 years) preparation, the transfer of animals was carried out in 1984.

The new location not only offered more space and more favourable conditions for development. It was also more convenient for adapting the institution to the modern concepts and mission of zoos as a key player in animal conservation.

The shift towards such a profile did not happen overnight, but the Sofia zoo took serious steps in that direction. It reported an increase in the number of animals born in captivity: 139 animals were born in 2018 which was a record-high number in the history of the zoo. 

Sofia Zoo is now a member of European Endangered Species Programme whose aim is to breed rare and endangered species in zoos. 

In a very recent development, it was admitted to the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) at the organization's annual meeting in Bergen, Norway in April 2023. Established in 1992, EAZA works to facilitate cooperation within the Europe and Western Asia zoo and aquarium community towards the goals of education, research and conservation.