Date opened | 1965 |
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Location | Bråviken bay, Sweden |
Annual visitors | 621,000 (2009)[1][2] |
Memberships | EAZA,[3] WAZA[4] |
Owner | Parks & Resorts Scandinavia |
Website | www.kolmarden.com |
Kolmården Wildlife Park (Swedish: Kolmårdens djurpark) is a zoo that opened in 1965 overlooking Bråviken bay in Sweden. It includes the first dolphinarium in Scandinavia, which opened in 1969 with a daily show (also gave its name to the nearby basketball team Norrköping Dolphins).
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The zoo was conceived in 1962 by Ulf Svensson as a means of reviving the Kolmården Municipality, and was opened in 1965 with 210 animals in residence.[5]
The polar bear facility opened in 1968 with 6 polar bears—one of the largest polar facilities in the world. The dolphinarium opened in 1969, and in 1972 the zoo became home to brown bears. 1972 also saw the opening of the drive-through safari park, as well as the Tropicarium, which exhibited snakes and crocodiles in an outdoor facility.[5]
In 1993 the zoo opened Dolphin Lagoon. In 1997 the zoo was turned over from municipal ownership to private ownership. Bamses värld, devoted to the cartoon character Bamse, was opened in the following year.[5]
Parks and Resorts Scandinavia took over operation of the zoo in 2001 and has since been making many changes. Tiger World, where visitors can get "scary close" to tigers, was completed in 2007, and in 2008, the dolphinarium was extended into a new Marine World. In 2009, a family friendly roller-coaster called "The dolphin express" (Delfinexpressen) opened in Marine World.[2]
The safari park that originally opened in 1972 was closed to drive-through visitors in 2010, but was replaced by a low-going cableway in 2011.
The zoo houses two elephants given to the king of Sweden by Thailand.[6] Kolmården Zoo has the only gorillas, bottle-nosed dolphins, bush dogs, addax antelopes, Asian elephants, dholes and ibex in Sweden.