Varna Zoo — Attraction in Varna

Varna Zoo is located in the heart of the Sea Garden in Varna and is a favourite place for kids and adults. It is neighbouring the Dolphinarium and the Museum of Natural History. The first animals in the zoo were the bear 'Maxim', a gift from sailors of the minesweeper "G. Dimitrov" in 1956, and the red deer 'Longos'. Today the zoo houses 60 species of animals, with more than 300 individuals, of which 17 protected kinds of birds and animals, written in the Red Book of Bulgaria for protected species.

Varna ZooDate opened30 April 1956; 64 years agoLocationSea Garden (Varna) Varna, BulgariaCoordinates43.2106420°N 27.9371434°ELand area6 acresNo. of animals300[1]No. of species60[2]Annual visitors100,000[3]Major exhibitsBirds, Herbivore animals, Carnivore animals, Primates[4]WebsiteVarna Zoo

HistoryEdit

Varna Zoo was built between 1958-1961 and opened on 30 April 1961. Architect Bistra Markova laid out the animal houses together with K. Karakashev and with the support from the major at that time, Nikolay Boyadzhiev.

Until the bear house was built in 1958, the bear Maxim had been tied to a tree. The lakes were populated with Rose pelicans. By 1974, the zoo received animals from the Sofia Zoo and foreign zoos, including kangaroos, lamas, panthers, penguins, swans from Berlin and other. By 1994 there were around 50 animal species. The oldest animals were Martin, a 24-years old camel, and the bears Martin and Marga,...

The zoo is tiny and it takes no more than 40 minutes to see all of it, which is probably for the better, considering how bad most of what you’ll see is.

The place isn’t clean. Some cages were empty, but you could still see they weren’t cleaned when their inhabitant moved out.

The birds section was disturbing. Fence was really low - low enough for someone to jump in, actually. There was no net above, or anything stopping the flying birds from flying off - and they weren’t even trying to. I can’t know for sure, but it looked like something was done to their wings to prevent them from escaping, and if that’s so, that’s not very humane.

Generally the park around the zoo is better than the zoo itself, but if you’re looking to waste half an hour, it’s not a...

Upon entering the zoo we found a pleasant but smelly walk past birds with the occasional tortoise freely strolling about, however further into the zoo we found a Lion cage, strong enough to maybe hold a medium sized dog , the only protection between us and 3 clearly bored and distressed top of the food chain predators was a cute little brass padlock on the gate..... That's it..... Further along we find pacing back and forth in a tiny cage, a beautiful tiger whom was what I can only describe as insane ? Bored and unhappy. The same is said for the Brown bear, endlessly walking the walls of his or her enclosure,,,, a pit! I'm afraid I was unimpressed, and rather upset at the state of the more intelligent animals here. Price - cheap. Accessible. I do...