The full name of the Mumbai zoo sounds quite impressive - Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan. This hard-to-pronounce name combines two parks at once - a botanical garden and a zoo.
Founded in 1861 by the wealthy businessman David Sassoon, the park was called Victoria Gardens, in honor of the British queen. The gardens were then gifted to the municipal authorities of Bombay, which gave them a new name in 1969. There are several colonial architectural monuments here - a triumphal arch, a Renaissance-style clock tower, and statues of the kings of Britain, which were moved deeper into the park after the change of power in India.
The botanical garden and the zoo are not separated from each other in any way and form a single park complex. This is the largest patch of greenery in the center of Mumbai, offering pleasant coolness and freshness after the noisy and dusty streets of the metropolis. In the botanical garden, you will find about 300 species of trees, of which around 30 are endangered species.
Mumbai Zoo does not have a very good reputation because of the conditions in which the animals are kept. At the moment, about 200 mammals, 500 birds, and 50 reptiles live here. Among them are elephants, spotted deer, crocodiles, zebras, flamingos, peacocks, and many other animals. The zoo administration promised to carry out a major reconstruction by 2014, improve the living conditions of its inhabitants, and bring in new rare animals.
