Zoo Arche Noah Grömitz, Animal park in Grömitz, Germany
Zoo Arche Noah Grömitz is an animal park that houses alpacas, kangaroos, llamas, goats, and lemurs in spacious enclosures. The facility spreads across a large area with differently designed habitats suited to each species' needs.
Zoo Arche Noah Grömitz opened on 14 April 1976 as a family business founded by Hans Wilhelm and is now run in the second generation by Ingo Wilhelm. His brother Uwe has operated the zoo of the same name in Braunschweig since 1978. Early attractions included a young elephant called Baby and a chimpanzee named Alfred; from 1990 to 2008 the zoo held ligers, three of them born there in 1990 from an unintended shared enclosure.
The zoo calls itself Germany's first bat-friendly zoo, taking part in the BUND campaign "Fledermausfreundliches Haus". Commented feedings at selected species supplement the signage of the newer enclosures, and a zoo school offers rooms for learning outside the classroom. The chimpanzee enclosure received the BdZ-Biber 2016 award from the zookeepers' association.
The zoo lies within Grömitz on Bundesstraße 501. The older, lower-lying section is crossed by ponds and holds the restaurant and playground; newer, larger paddocks lie to the north and south. In the walk-through enclosures for Cameroon sheep and for emus with Bennett's kangaroos there is no prescribed path, so visitors may move across almost the whole enclosure area.
The zoo's one-hectare chimpanzee enclosure, opened in 2012, took about ten years to build because much of the work was done in-house to save costs. In 2016 the keepers' association BdZ awarded it the BdZ-Biber prize for outstanding animal enclosures, citing its good energy balance and educational presentation.
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