A place where everyone is welcome

Being a wheelchair user, a good deal of the time I spend on trips comes down to overcoming various architectural barriers…

One of the places I didn’t have to think about those is the Palić Zoo.

The Palić Zoo was founded in 1950 by the city of Subotica.

It is located near Lake Palić in northern Serbia. It covers an area of 10 hectares.

The Palic Zoo is home to 800 animal species and one of the most beautiful in the region because it is also home to a large botanical garden with more than 300 plant species.

And I would just like to add that this is is also the most friendly zoo for us ‘wheelers’ in all of Serbia.

It’s not as big and grand as any other in the world, but you can comfortably spend at least 3 hours in it.

The animals were grouped into thematic units and the hosts made every effort to mimic the conditions of the natural environment as much as possible.

Wherever possible, the cages were removed (Hurrah!) and water channels were installed as the only border between us and them.

To me, as a person in a wheelchair, it means a lot because many animals I have not been able to see before from various fences.

Although I agree with the statement that the lion and the tiger are the most beautiful when in their natural habitat, when I see how much thought was put in the arrangement of each “cage”, I somehow forget that this is still some kind of prison.

It wasn’t always like this, the First Zoos used to be private collections owned by very rich people. These collections were called menageries, which did not give much thought to animal rights.

Traces lead to ancient Egypt around 3500 BC. It is mentioned that the famous King Solomon was an avid animal collector, King Nebuchadnezzar and even Alexander the Great.

Wild animals have also been used in gladiatorial combat in a very cruel way and there are also reports that some British kings kept animals trapped in a London fort.

The ticket price was a dog or cat with which these animals were later fed. It wasn’t until the 19th century that zoo’s became what they needed to be, a place to entertain and educate in the right way.

There are also animals that you cannot keep in the zoo because they are very sensitive to environmental changes, or their environment cannot be imitated at all.

One of these is swallows (who would have thought) and also, for example, a kind of lemur living in Madagascar. They survive only up to a year in captivity because they eat certain foods at certain times of the day, and in no way can these conditions be reproduced in an artificial environment.

In any case, the Palić garden allows for a really nice and educational walk, after which you get a healthy apatite. There is an inn nearby, where the beef perklet with turous (homemade noodles with cheese and baked bacon pieces) is cooked in the same way since 1939.