Guide
The İzmir Wildlife Park is a non-profit zoo in the Çiğli district of İzmir, opened by the metropolitan municipality on 30 November 2008. It covers 425,000 square metres and holds close to 1,800 animals of 132 species. Around a million people visit it each year, and the animals — those brought from the closed İzmir Zoo and others from abroad — are shown in settings close to their natural ones.
Work began in 2006. It had been decided to close the İzmir Zoo in Kültürpark, opened in 1937 as the first zoo in Türkiye, and to move its animals to the new site at Çiğli. Twenty-one million lira were spent on the building of the park.
The park has been a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria since 3 April 2011. In 2013 it received an award for municipal services, landscape and environment from the Organisation of Islamic Capitals and Cities, and infrastructure renewal was carried out in December 2023.
One area holds small horses, pygmy goats, Cameroon sheep, rabbits, hens and turkeys along with tortoises and terrapins.
The tropical centre, the first in Türkiye, covers 2,300 square metres and holds sixty-six animals of eighteen species, among them snakes, lizards, crocodiles, turtles, fish, macaws, marmosets and fruit bats.
Fourteen and a half thousand square metres are given to Asian elephants. The first Asian elephant born in Türkiye was born here, and the calf was named İzmir through an internet poll. The grave of Pak Bahadır, the Asian elephant that was the emblem of the old İzmir Zoo and died at the age of fifty-nine during an operation, is within this area.
Among the other mammals in the park are kangaroos, meerkats, ground squirrels, guinea pigs, coatis, gazelles, fallow deer, red deer, camels, wild goats, hyenas, bears, wolves, lynx, ring-tailed lemurs, pumas, lions and tigers.
