History
Welcome to Borås Zoo - a green oasis in the heart of Borås. The zoo offers 40 hectares of natural beauty and features wild countryside, animal habitats, walks, BBQ sites, play areas, restaurant, café and kiosks.
We are principally focused on displaying large African animals alongside the wild animals of the Nordic Region.
Borås Zoo was founded in 1962 by Sigvard Berggren in collaboration with Borås Municipality under the motto ‘animals in nature” and pioneered the concept for the zoo shortly thereafter. The subsequent ten years saw the creation of the savannah area, which resulted in Borås Zoo becoming a forerunner to the modern zoo, bringing together many species of animal over a very large area. There are many copies of Borås Zoo’s trendsetting 23,000 sq m. savannah in the world today. Our motto “animals in nature” remains our guiding star today.
We prefer to work with nature’s own material, and avoid steel and concrete as far as possible. The intention is for the animals to live in an environment that is as natural as possible and be stimulated to behave naturally.
This method of keeping animals has produced excellent animal husbandry results, which means that Borås Zoo can always delight its visitors with its many species of young animals. Some species are very difficult to keep in a zoo environment, but by combining experience and innovation we have achieved great success. We continue to build new habitats based on the natural environment of the animals, and we are always looking to improve them, both for the well-being of the animals and for the enjoyment of the paying visitors.
Borås Djurpark AB is a municipal company and comprises the zoo and Borås Camping. We can offer total solutions for conferences, corporate events and customised activities.
A visit to us is an adventure for the whole family.
Per Kettil
CEO
Why a Zoo?
The World Zoo Conservation Strategy (WZCS) is a conservation strategy for the zoos of the world. This strategy is a worldwide plan of action for the serious work undertaken by zoos to preserve species, natural habitats and ecosystems.
This work is based on preserving endangered species, both in zoos and in the wild. The concepts of working in-situ (in the wild) and ex-situ (outside of the natural environment) are becoming all the more common in nature conservation work. The basic factors for all preservation work are information and education, where the zoos have a major a major part to play. The work of Borås Zoo is based on this strategy that serves as a unifying theme for our operations.
The work in preserving endangered species takes place within national and international breeding programmes. Borås Zoo is participating in 15 of these programmes.
Svenska Djurparksföreningen (SDF) (Swedish Association of Zoos and Aquaria) is running eleven projects involving endangered species; wolf, bear, Baltic grey seal, wild forest reindeer, wolverine, lynx, arctic fox, otter, white stork, European bison and musk-ox and the group of Nordic owls. Borås Zoo is participating in the five first mentioned projects.
The European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) is coordinating the breeding programmes for the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP), which includes some 130 species. Borås Zoo is participating in nine of these breeding programmes.
The animals included in the project either have the EEP symbol (rhinoceros with calf) or the SDF symbol (she-bear with cub).
