Tierpark Gera, Gera

The Thuringian Forest Zoo Gera was founded in 1962 as a small home animal enclosure and developed into the largest forest zoo in Eastern Thuringia and one of the largest in Thuringia. It is located in the middle of the city forest - just outside the city of Gera - in the Martinsgrund. A special feature are the deep ravines created by strong erosion.

Nearly 900 animals from about 76 different species live here on an abundant 20-hectare area. These are mainly native to the northern hemisphere, such as fallow deer, red deer, roe deer, Alpine ibex, bison or Przewalski's horses. The Waldzoo Gera is particularly successful in keeping elk. Reindeer, yaks and European mouflons are other hoofed animals kept. In cages and aviaries, the zoo keeps, among others, eagle owls, snowy owls, marsh harriers, red kites, arctic foxes and lynxes. Other birds are represented by amazons and parakeets. Ducks, geese and swans enliven the park's waterways. Raccoons share an enclosure with ferrets and raccoon dogs live with stone martens.

While the forest zoo originally showed mainly native animals, today there are also some exotic animals living in the park. The zoo also has a walk-in monkey forest with a family group of Barbary macaques. The heraldic animal of the city of Gera, the lion, is present in the forest zoo. The same predator house also houses China leopards, an Asian subspecies of leopard. There continues to be an enclosure with nandus and llamas. The farm integrated into the forest zoo is particularly popular with children. In addition to typical farm animals such as Haflingers, chickens and ducks, old Thuringian domestic breeds such as the Thuringian Forest goat and the Thuringian Forest donkey live here.

The Thuringian Forest Zoo Gera has a park railroad. This was created in 1975 as a pioneer railroad and today transports around 45,000 zoo visitors a year on its 800-meter-long track. There is a petting enclosure and adventure playgrounds. Guided tours and the numerous viewing and resting places in the park are among the other attractions.

The number of visitors was 107,748 in 2008.