Place archive

Moscow Zoo

Moscow Zoo, the oldest zoo in Russia, was founded in 1864 by the Russian Imperial Society for the Acclimatization of Animals and Plants. Located in the Central Administrative Okrug of Moscow adjacent to the Moscow River, it currently houses more than 1,100 species including *Ailuropoda melanoleuca* (giant panda), *Panthera tigris altaica* (Amur tiger), *Grus leucogeranus* (Siberian crane), and *Pusa sibirica* (Baikal seal). It maintains formal accreditation from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) and the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), with long-term research partnerships with Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2019, under the Sino-Russian Giant Panda Conservation Cooperation Program, giant pandas Ding Ding and Ru Yi arrived at the zoo from the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Dujiangyan, Sichuan. The 2023 birth of their male cub, named Katyusha following a public vote, marked the first successful giant panda birth in Russian territory, with the species listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and protected under Appendix I of CITES. The zoo’s panda breeding research team regularly exchanges data with specialists from the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Bre

Moscow Zoo houses giant pandas under international loan agreement with the China Conservation and Research Center, as part of the cooperative panda diplomacy and ex-situ conservation network.