| The western European country of
Portugal is famous for its strong winds and moderate climate. In general
the climate is dry, but with a good amount of rain during some months.
The warm to moderate temperatures create brilliant vegetation in many
areas.
The country is quite small, covering only 92,000 km2.
The resident population of ten million does not provide a strong
argument for opening a zoo in this country, but about 12 million
tourists every year represent a large number of potential zoo visitors,
making some doubts about commercial success disappear.
As a result of its rich colonial past, Portugal has a
relatively long history of zoological gardens. The first royal menagerie
was built by King Denis (1279–1325) and was inhabited by species from
the local fauna, bears and wolves in particular. The second royal
menagerie, which was supplied with many animals brought from Africa for
King Alfonso V (1438–1481), was created in Cintra.
Portuguese colonization and trade were carried to
their peak by Vasco da Gama at the end of the 15th century. During that
period many African and Asian animals arrived in Lisbon. Particularly
interesting to note is the arrival of the first rhinoceroses to reach
Europe since the destruction of the Roman empire. A sketch by a
Portuguese artist of an Indian rhinoceros just unloaded at Lisbon
harbour later inspired Albrecht Dürer’s famous drawing of 1515 (with the
unusual horn on the neck). At that time a third menagerie to accommodate
all these animals was built in Ribeira.
During the second half of the 16th century the
Portuguese conquests and the nation’s wealth gradually decreased. But
finally the menageries, which had been abandoned during the Spanish
occupation (1580–1640), were restored after the revolution of 1640. The
menagerie of Ribeira was quickly repopulated. Just near the gates of
Lisbon, in Belem, another menagerie was created by King John V in 1726.
Because of its importance and its design the Belem menagerie is
sometimes regarded as the first true Portuguese zoological garden. The
menagerie of Queluz was the last royal menagerie created in Portugal.
The royal family had to flee due to the French invasion in 1807 and all
the zoological collections were then completely abandoned.
About 50 years later some large commercial menageries
were created in Lisbon and Oporto. It could have been their extent and
their success which led to the idea of the creation of a true zoological
garden in Lisbon. This was finally done in 1884, when a company of
shareholders created the Garden of Zoology and Acclimatization of Lisbon.
It was initially installed in the Parque de San Sebastio de Pedreira and
later transferred to a nearby site named Parque de Palhaira. The zoo was
finally settled on its permanent site in the Parque das Laranjeiras in
1905.
Because Portugal had colonies in Africa, America,
Arabia, India, China and South-east Asia, it seems certain that some
private individuals must have brought exotic animals from the colonies
in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the majority of Portuguese citizens
did not have a chance to see wild animals until recently. Having just a
single zoo in the whole of Portugal for almost a century, the Portuguese
people could get in touch with exotic wildlife only through small
travelling menageries or fairly big circuses which could present large
mammals such as big cats, camels and elephants.
The Spanish cities in areas close to Portugal, like
Vigo in the north or some cities in Andalusia, also did not have any
zoos until about 20 or 30 years ago, when some small collections opened
in tourist areas. But the history of Portuguese and Spanish zoos is
closely related. In 1988 the Spanish Zoo Association was founded, and in
1999 the name was changed to AIZA (Asociación Ibérica de Zoos y Acuarios
or its equivalent in Portuguese – see www.aiza.org.es), paying regard to
the fact that some Portuguese zoos had joined the association. Today
seven zoos in Portugal are members of AIZA, five are members of EAZA (European
Association of Zoos and Aquariums) and two of WAZA (World Association of
Zoos and Aquariums).
The APZA (Associação Portuguesa de Zoos e Aquária)
was created in 2006 in response to the adoption into Portuguese law of
new EU legislation relating to institutions, as well as more complex
licensing processes and the reaction to epidemic diseases.
The second zoo in Portugal (Zoo da Maia) did not open
until 1985, a century after Lisbon Zoo was founded in 1884. During the
following years only a few collections opened, such as Zoo Lourosa close
to Oporto in 1990 and Zoomarine in the Algarve in 1991. But in the last
ten years more zoos have opened in Portugal, most of them with mainly
commercial backgrounds, such as Badoca Safari in 1999, Zoo Lagos in
2000, Zoo Quinta S. Inácio in 2001 and Monte Selvagem in 2004. An
exception was the opening of Omega Parque in the Algarve [see IZN 50
(2), 92–96], which housed almost exclusively rare and endangered animals
on loan from other European collections. Here animals were presented in
a very ‘uniberian’ way, with plenty of space and many ways to hide from
the public – in total contrast to the small cages and more
‘visitor-oriented’ way of exhibiting animals typical of most Spanish and
Portuguese zoos.
The oldest aquarium in this country with its strong
links to sea life and fishing is the Aquario Vasco da Gama in Dafundo,
Lisbon. This historic aquarium was opened in 1898 and the museum and
animals still occupy the original site. Today some seven aquariums and
marine mammal collections exist in Portugal, most of them opened in the
last few years.
In April 2007 we took a ten-day tour to see the most
important and interesting of these collections and to visit the new
Omega Parque in the south of Portugal, which unfortunately has announced
that it is to be closed very soon. During our tour we learned that we
were lucky to see a number of other collections which are on the point
of changing their appearance or closing. So it was the right time to do
a survey and get an impression of the current situation of zoos, zoo
design and wild animal husbandry in Portugal.
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