Zoológico de Montevideo, Municipal zoo in Villa Dolores, Uruguay.
Zoológico de Montevideo is a municipal zoo within Villa Dolores park featuring animal enclosures arranged across different zones and connected by walking paths. The facility includes information stations and rest areas scattered throughout the grounds for visitor convenience.
The zoo began in 1894 as the private collection of Alejo Anastasio Ibaceta and Dolores Pereira Buxareo, who named the estate Villa Dolores after her. In 1910 they bought large mammals from Carl Hagenbeck, and in 1912 they bred two Andean condors, a first for the Americas. Ibaceta bequeathed the estate to Montevideo, which took possession on 14 March 1919.
The name Villa Dolores honours Dolores Pereira Buxareo, wife of founder Alejo Anastasio Ibaceta, who began the collection on his estate in 1894. Early visitors paid a modest entrance fee given to charity, and the site hosted night parties under artificial lighting. In 1912 it became the first zoo in the Americas to breed Andean condors.
The former zoo grounds reopened in 2021 as Parque Villa Dolores, a 7-hectare site beside the Municipal Planetarium Germán Barbato, inaugurated on 11 February 1955. The three artificial lakes from the private estate — the Japanese, White and Blue lakes — still structure the walk, and the palm-lined avenues border the paths. The planetarium shares the same plot, so both can be visited on one outing.
In 1912 the zoo became the first in the Americas, and the second in the world, to breed Andean condors. Its owner, Alejo Anastasio Ibaceta, had named the estate Villa Dolores after his wife, Dolores Pereira Buxareo, and in 1910 he bought polar bears, striped hyenas and a small Asian elephant from Carl Hagenbeck's German animal trading firm.
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