Qualla: Cologne Zoological Garden

Cologne Zoological Garden: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Patrick Ch. Apfeld, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Victorians who founded the Cologne Zoo in 1860 thought animals deserved palaces. The first elephant house went up looking like a Moorish temple. The bird house borrowed the silhouette of a Russian cathedral. The cattle and ox barns were Swiss log cabins. A century and a half later, much of that whimsy has been replaced by quieter, kinder enclosures, but the impulse to make the zoo feel like a small civilization of its own remains. Today it holds more than 10,000 animals from over 850 species across twenty hectares in the Riehl district, just north of the old city. It is Germany's third-oldest zoo, and it has the scars to prove it.

Image: Patrick Ch. Apfeld | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cologne Zoological Garden: The Founders' Folly, the Founders' Gift

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FAfromK, CC BY-SA 4.0. A group of Cologne citizens organized a shareholding company in 1860 and hired biologist Heinrich Bodinus as the zoo's first director. Bodinus would later go on to direct the Berlin Zoological Garden, but here, in the city's first years of operation, he oversaw the construction o...

Image: FAfromK | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cologne Zoological Garden: The Elephant Park

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian0918, CC BY-SA 2.5. The current Asian elephant park opened in 2004, replacing the old combined elephant and antelope house. It is one of the largest open-air elephant facilities in Europe, and breeding has been remarkably successful: a calf was born as recently as 2023. The herd has known difficulty...

Image: Brian0918 | CC BY-SA 2.5

Cologne Zoological Garden: Hippodom, Rainforest, Aquarium

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doppelklecks, CC BY-SA 4.0. Three large indoor exhibits anchor the modern zoo. The Hippodom, opened in 2010, recreates a West African watering hole where common hippopotamuses share the space with Nile crocodiles, sitatunga antelopes, aardvarks, and Rodrigues flying foxes overhead. The Rainforest Hall, open...

Image: Doppelklecks | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cologne Zoological Garden: Conservation at the Edge

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doppelklecks, CC BY-SA 4.0. The zoo runs in-the-wild conservation projects on three continents, focused on Madagascar, Wallacea, and Vietnam. The captive breeding program for the psychedelic rock gecko, an electric-blue lizard from southern Vietnam, is a partnership with Cologne University to protect a spec...

Image: Doppelklecks | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cologne Zoological Garden: March 2022

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit sarefo, CC BY-SA 3.0. On 15 March 2022 a fire broke out in the Southeast Asian rainforest house. At least 130 animals died. The cause remained under investigation for months. Among those lost were birds the zoo had bred over decades and reptiles that were part of regional conservation populations. The...

Image: sarefo | CC BY-SA 3.0