Miroslav Bobek: The highest award for the Prague Zoo
After joining the Prague Zoo, I spent the first weekend in the office. How else… During that weekend, I wrote down ten points at which I could begin our future approach to the protection of endangered species in the wild; these were and still remain one of my priorities. Based on this document, we then began to support or directly a number of in situ projects. For one of them, The Return of the Wild Horses, we have now received the highest possible award the zoo can receive: the WAZA Conservation Award. This is the sixth award that the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) has awarded. We have thus joined a truly respectable society.
The very first WAZA Conservation Award was won in 2016 by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, founded by the legendary Gerald Durrell, and it was his contributions to the protection of endangered species in Madagascar and elsewhere that decided to award the award. This was followed by the American Monterey Bay Aquarium (2017) awarded for efforts to protect the oceans, the Australian Taronga Zoo (2018) awarded for many projects in many countries, the Swiss Zoo Zurich (2019) for a quarter of a century of work in Masoala National Park in Madagascar and the Georgia Aquarium (2020). )) for its comprehensive contribution to the protection of giant sharks.
And this year, the list of WAZA Conservation Award plaque holders has expanded to include the Prague Zoo and the Return of the Wild Horses. Under this name we usually perceive the activities of the last decade, especially the transport of Převalský’s horses to Mongolia, but there can be no doubt that the highest award is in Prague today, taking into account all the merits of our zoo in saving Převalský’s horse, ie for what goes through almost throughout its ninety-year history.
Thanks and gratitude must be directed not only to the current employees of the Prague Zoo, but also to entire generations of their predecessors. Our founder, the capital city of Prague, also deserves thanks, who understood that the effort to protect biodiversity is the most important task of modern zoos. However, I cannot forget many of our partners and collaborators in our country and in the world. Finally, we should also thank all the visitors and fans of our zoo.
The WAZA Conservation Award is an event that goes beyond the environment of zoos and is not only important for Prague. And nothing will make me happier than if, at least in a small part, it contributes to paying more attention to biodiversity protection.
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