Burgers Zoo
Schelmseweg 85
6816 SH Arnhem
The Netherlands
Tele: +31 26 4424534
Fax: +31 26 4430776
Email: info@BurgersZoo.nl
http://www.burgerszoo.nl
Burgers' Zoo takes up approximately 18
hectares of the total park and houses more than 3,000 animals. With regard to keeping
animals, Burgers' has developed its own philosophy. Keywords are 'behaviour', 'space' and
'natural'. The inhabitants of the park include all three species of anthropoid apes,
smaller monkeys, bongos, elephants, stokstaartjes, sealions, pinguďns, meerkats, sea
lions, penguins, animals of prey, cows and many species of birds.
In 1968 Burgers' opens the first lion
park of continental Europe. One year after the opening, a large number of hoofed animals
and birds join the lions in the park and Burgers' introduces the name 'Safari Park'. From
1988 cars and coaches are no longer allowed in the park and in 1995 the safari train stops
running too. These days there is a walking route; a 250-metre-long walking bridge gives
visitors the opportunity to enjoy the wonderful panorama in peace and quiet, from a
beautiful vantage point. In the savannah landscape giraffes, zebras, many antelopes,
rhinoceroses, and a number of African bird species can be studies and admired. It goes
without saying that the bridge also leads the visitors along the original inhabitants of
the Safari Park, the lions and cheetahs.
In 1988 a new milestone is realised in
the history of Burgers' Zoo: a genuine jungle! A gigantic hall, measuring one and a half
hectares, enables Burgers' to keep and present tropical animals and plants in a novel way.
Since 1988 a spectacular tropical rain forest has been growing in this spot. Along narrow
paths and exciting suspension bridges the visitor is led through the dark rain forest.
Full of anticipation, he can look for the inhabitants of the jungle, which could cross his
path at any time or which could, curious beings that they also are, watch him from up in
the tall trees or from behind the thick covert. It is quite easy to spot the often noisy
and exotic inhabitants, especially when they fly through or over the imposing vegetation
with their quick or slow wingbeats, depending on the type of bird.
For the large animals, such as sea cows,
aardvarks, pygmy otters and caiman, it is altogether impossible to escape the attention of
the visitors.
Burgers' Bush was a world premičre, but there was more to come. First the opening of the
Mangrove Hall in 1992, and from 1994 visitors have been able to explore a living desert.
The landscape of Burgers' Desert is a true-to-life version of the North-American,
subtropical Sonora Desert.
Burgers' Desert consists of flatlands,
numerous rock masses, canyons, dry riverbeds and an oasis, of course. Partly because of
the characteristic cactuses - some of which are more than six metres high and over one
hundred years old -, the dwarf trees and palm trees, you imagine yourself are in a real
desert. Typical desert animals roam around freely here. Poisonous snakes and scorpions
are, it goes with saying, 'kept within bounds'. Larger animals, such as peccaries,
bighorns and red lynxes can also be admired in their natural surroundings. Even a famous
movie star lives in Burgers' Desert: the Roadrunner, better known to children as Meep-Meep
of the cartoons by the same name.
