“Taigan Lion Park is closed to the public from January 13, 2022 until further notice,” posted on the website of the largest safari park in Europe, located in Crimea. The same notice is posted on the website of the Yalta Zoo Skazka. Both organizations are owned by the entrepreneur Oleg Zubkov.
Both zoos will be reconstructed in the next two months in order to adhere to the strict animal maintenance requirements. Upon completion of reconstruction Taigan and Skazka will undergo inspections to obtain licenses and resume operation, reported the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The superintendent of the park told the Rossiyskaya Gazeta that the situation is not critical as it takes time to rearrange everything.
The petting zoo of the Simferopol Children’s Park (owned by Parks of the Capital) has also been closed since the beginning of the year due to the failure to receive a license before the deadline. Currently, the petting zoo is working on putting additional gates to ensure safety of visitors, as well as expanding animal enclosures. For instance, Roman Filipenko, the Director of the Municipal Culture Institution Parks of the Capital, said that the size of the bear enclosure in the zoo is 20-30 square meters. According to the current standards, it should be expanded to 100 square meters. “Fortunately, there is enough room to make changes, though before constructions begin, we need to provide an evaluation and design specifications. Besides, we are waiting to receive a budget allocation from the city council,” he said.
The situation is more complex with the Bakhchisaray Park of Miniatures and the Yalta Crocodile Zoo owned by Viktor Zhilenko. According to him, it is very difficult to comply with reptiles maintenance requirements in a zoo. For example, the enclosure size for one Nile crocodile should be at least 10 square meters. However, the zoo location in the downtown makes it impossible to expand the animal enclosures,” said Zhilenko.
The information on new licensing requirements was published back in 2018, Maksim Tsukanov, the Deputy Head of the State Veterinary Supervision Department of Rosselkhoznadzor told earlier to the Veterinary Medicine and Life. Therefore, the organizations had enough time to modernize their businesses in order to comply with the requirements on use and maintenance of animals set in the government regulation No. 1937.
At the same time, Alushta Aquarium has been able to timely obtain a license and continued to operate from its current site.
As a reminder, by January 1, 2022 all circuses, zoos, zoological gardens and dolphinariums that keep and use animals for cultural and entertainment purposes were required to receive a permit to operate. To operate a business without a license is prohibited.
According to Rosselkhoznadzor, 147 organizations were granted licenses by the end of December. This only equates to 10% of most organizations in Russia that keep and use animals.
Rosselkhoznadzor, in turn, is prepared to promptly conduct inspections to the organizations to ensure that all animal maintenance requirements have been met. The organizations that have failed to apply for a license will be subject to inspections in 2022.
