About the Zoo & Wildlife

Rabat Zoo (Arabic: حَدِيْقَة ٱلْحَيْوَانَات بِٱلرِّبَاط, romanized: Ḥadīqat al-Ḥaywānāt bir-Ribāṭ ("Zoological Garden in Rabat"), ٱلْحَدِيْقَة ٱلْوَطَنِيَّة لِلْحَيْوَانَات بِٱلرِّبَاط ("The National Park for Animals in Rabat"); French: Jardin Zoologique de Rabat), formerly known as "Temara Zoo", is a zoological park near Rabat in Morocco that was established in 1973. The first enclosures were built to house lions that were previously kept in the royal palace. These lions, believed to be descendants of the now-extinct Barbary lion, form the ancestral line of the zoo’s current lion population. The Rabat Zoo focuses on a diverse range of African wild species, and more specifically, Moroccan animals with symbolic species such as the Atlas lion, desert gazelles, and the bald ibis, which have their last wild settlements in Morocco. The enclosures for these animal species were built in a manner similar to their natural habitats, with the goal of recreating the original living conditions and providing these animals with a natural expressive environment that aligns with their behaviors in the wild, avoiding the creation of artificial external ecosystems.