Zoological gardens and parks

Zoological gardens and parks (зоологічні парки, зоопарки, зоологічні городи; zoolohichni parky, zooparky, zoolohichni horody). Cultural and educational establishments in which wild and sometimes domesticated animals are kept for display, scientific research, and reproduction. The only difference between gardens and parks is in their size and the extent of their collections. In recent times zoological gardens have become responsible for the preservation and even breeding of rare or endangered species of animals; others have undertaken the task of acclimatizating animals to new geographic environments, research on various diseases and their prevention, and so on. In Ukraine the first zoological park was organized in 1875 in what is now the Askaniia-Nova Biosphere Reserve. Others followed in Kharkiv (1896), Mykolaiv (1901), Kyiv (1908), Odesa (1936), the town of Mena in Chernihiv oblast (1977), and Cherkasy (1979). The largest of these is the zoological park in Kyiv, covering an area of 40 ha, where over 1,600 animals representing more than 240 species are kept. In Kharkiv 300 elephants were bred in captivity, and in Mykolaiv 300 lions are regularly bred. (See also Nature preserves.)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]