Yerevan Zoo
Encyclopedia
Zoo
A zoological garden, zoological park, menagerie, or zoo is a facility in which animals are confined within enclosures, displayed to the public, and in which they may also be bred....
established in 1940 in Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...
, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
.
Animals
At present the zoo is home to about 2749 individuals representing 204 species. Species representing the South Caucasus and Armenia include brown bearBrown Bear
The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...
s, Bezoar goats
Bezoar Ibex
The Bezoar Ibex is a vulnerable wild goat, native to Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Russia and Turkey. It has been extirpated from Lebanon. The Bezoar goat is found in the mountains of Asia Minor and across the Middle East...
, vipers, Armenian mouflon
Mouflon
The mouflon is a subspecies group of the wild sheep Ovis aries. Populations of Ovis aries can be partitioned into the mouflons and urials or arkars...
, and black vulture
Black vulture
Black vulture may refer to:* American Black Vulture* Eurasian Black Vulture...
s. Other species at the zoo from around the world include lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
s, tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
s, hyenas, and an Asian elephant
Asian Elephant
The Asian or Asiatic elephant is the only living species of the genus Elephas and distributed in Southeast Asia from India in the west to Borneo in the east. Three subspecies are recognized — Elephas maximus maximus from Sri Lanka, the Indian elephant or E. m. indicus from mainland Asia, and E. m....
named Grantik.
Conservation
Since Armenia is a biodiversity hot spot, the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC) has leased and taken over management of about 839 hectares (2,073.2 acre) near the Khosrov reserve, which until recently had been unprotected and at risk of poaching, illegal logging, and overgrazing. The Yerevan Zoo is cooperating with the FPWC to use this land for wildlife rehabilitation and the reintroducing critically endangered species of the area into the wild.Education
In 2012 the zoo, in cooperation with the Foundation for the Preservation of Wildlife and Cultural Assets (FPWC), the municipality of Yerevan, and the ArtisArtis
Artis, short for Natura Artis Magistra , is a zoo in the centre of Amsterdam. It is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands...
Zoo in Amsterdam, will open a zoo school. The main purpose of this school will be to teach schoolchildren the importance of biodiversity in Armenia and around the world, and it will use the zoo as an interactive classroom.