On Wednesday afternoon, together with the families from the project We are with you at the right time, we went on a tour of the Košice Zoo. Eva Malešová, Head of the Promotion Department, welcomed everyone to the largest zoo in Slovakia  and at the same time one of the largest in Europe, which provides a home for approximately 350 species of animals.

One of them was brought for demonstration and for  petting by Laura Lukovíny, who then accompanied us on the tour, provided a lot of interesting information and answered curious questions not only from children but also from adults.

The family of Peter Veliký was the first to pet the animal  brought. The "animal" was a royal python and they decided to pet it after our guide assured them that this snake is not poisonous, it is "just" a strangler.  The wife of the deputy president of U. S. Steel, Allison Revello, also took the opportunity to touch the snake. As she told us, she loves animals very much, she even dreamed of becoming a veterinarian as a child. Her favorite animals are cats and currently especially one of her neighbors, who regularly visits them.

The family of Jaroslav Baroš  also enjoyed a walk through the early evening, but still hot zoo. The girls especially liked the seals and could not resist feeding the meerkats.  Meerkats are among the most popular inhabitants of the Košice Zoo – they are cheerful, active and visitors enjoy observing their community spirit. Not only Miss Juraj Baroš, Zuzka and Julka, took advantage of the offer of the guide Laura and threw food to the meerkats - mealworms.

Families were also interested in the explanation of the life of camels, and especially children looked at the baby with interest. Colleagues from the zoo also boasted about the breeding of Przewalski's horses.  The Košice Zoo, in cooperation with the Prague Zoo, is actively and successfully involved in the repatriation of this species back to Mongolia. All the children, including Jakub Tarnóci, were happy when the seals began to "show off" in the pool.  There are two people living in the Košice Zoo, one was imported from Germany, the other from Sweden and both were born on July 4, 2014.

In this warm afternoon, Peter Azari, whose father Peter pulled in a wheelchair most of the time, probably felt the best. Not only them, but all of us breathed better at least for a while when we headed into the "bowels" of the floodplain forest.  The attractive Floodplain Forest Nature Trail is a great natural science exhibition integrated directly in the zoo area. It is approximately 200 meters long, above ground, runs on a wooden footbridge through the habitat of a mountain floodplain forest and provides a great shelter from the heat.

"I would still stay," objected Samko Huňady at the end of the tour. He likes to go to the zoo very much, he likes to get to know animals. "Last time we walked here for six hours. But we had a wheelchair, so Samko had an advantage because I dragged him all over the garden," added Jozef Huňady.

Of course, we could not miss the breeding facility for bears and we ended the afternoon with excellent refreshments. "Everything was great. The explanation was interesting, we learned a lot of things about animals that we had never heard before. The walk suited us well, even though it was warm. The refreshments were excellent and we are already looking forward to the next joint event," said Peter Azari.

Photo: Ján Kisucký