Abstract
As safari park the kind from a wide variety of zoos/zoo exhibits is called. This term describes drive-in (by visitor's own car) or ride-through enclosures (by buses, trucks or trains).
The scientific literature about zoos is traditionally connected with just leading zoological gardens and only occasionally with other kinds of zoos. Therefore, the main goal of this contribution is to find, whether safari park is an outdated concept, or a current topic.
Because it is not a common type of zoo, it was both relevant and possible to build the European safari database. It is based on analysis of zoo websites, review websites that are focused on zoos and the travel portal TripAdvisor.
The list of potential safaris was checked, just facilities corresponding with the definition were included. Thanks to this database it was possible to create an analysis of the current situation and development.
It was found that there are 53 safari areas in Europe, while 16 ones have been closed during the last 40 years. The most intensive period of the establishing was at the beginning of this phenomenon - the years 1966 to 1977.
In this period, 39 safari parks were opened to public; that means the majority of all safari parks that ever existed was founded over the span of 12 years. Typical safari park of this era was connected with presenting African animals and particularly the lion and other (not just African) attractive carnivores.
Nevertheless, in this time safari parks were merely founded west of the Iron curtain. Therefore, there are much less safari parks in the post socialist world to this day.
The only traditional large African safari park east of the former Iron curtain is located in Dvůr Králové, Czechia. However, we can identify three other safaris and an additional one under construction in Czechia.
The high density of safari facilities in this central European country is caused partly by great popularity of zootrains. Hence, new Czech safaris might represent a different type of safari enclosure than the traditional ones in Western Europe as well as a shift in the safari park history and geography.
Newer safaris have smaller area, wider spectrum of animals than just species from Africa and they are more often treated as an attractive additional part of traditional zoos, not as a main part of the facility as before. Therefore, the use of visitor's own cars in these parks is not common and it indicates an ongoing expansion of the variety of safari parks.