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Rotterdam Zoo (or Diergaarde Blijdorp, as it is known in Dutch) with its 1.6 million visitors is one of the largest tourist attractions in the Netherlands. It is a modern zoo where the visitor can see animals are housed in naturalistic enclosures that resemble their natural habitats. These habitats or 'biotopes' are organised on a geographical basis. For example, in the Asian continent area the visitor will find Bactrian camels and Przewalski horses inhabiting a Mongolian steppe. The Asian elephants and rhinoceroses share their indoor riverine forest habitat with gibbons and pythons while Sulawesi macaques, water birds and oriental small-clawed otters inhabit an Asian swamp area and nearby fruit bats roost in their own cave. The development of other "continents" will follow a comprehensive masterplan. The first part of "Africa" has recently been realised with a large island habitat for the gorillas and a new enclosures for okapis and bush pigs.
 In July 2001, a whole new area of the zoo officially opened its doors to the public: the Oceanium. In this new 'water world', which is Rotterdam Zoo's largest project to date, you can make a journey of discovery along coasts and through oceans. You start in northern Europe and then travel on via the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas. During your passage you will be 'submerged' into five different aquatic biotopes: the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Carribean, the Sea of Cortez, and the kelp forests of the Californian coasts. Each area is populated by its own characteristic species which range from jellyfish to sharks and from sea turtles to puffins and king penguins as well as playful sea otters and sealions while the "land" is home to hutias, jaguarundis, snakes and butterflies.
 The Oceanium is a highly sophisticated complex, it provides a home for creatures originating from tropics to the Antarctic, and suitable conditions must be provided accordingly. A great deal of attention has been devoted to the technology behind the building: energy conservation and sustainability are key words. As a result of the unique filtering system, only 2-5% of the seven million litres of seawater need to be replaced every month, the rest is recycled.
Rotterdam Zoo aims to be more than just a tourist attraction, its primary goal is to support nature conservation in its broadest sense through research, education, species conservation and support of conservation work in the field. With the advent of the Oceanium, Rotterdam Zoo hopes to contribute to the protection of marine and coastal environments and the flora and fauna that inhabit them. This goal will be realised through:
* Research:  The Oceanium is equipped with a marine laboratory where, in addition to monitoring water quality, research is done into animal behaviour and reproduction. The marine biology staff co-operate with universities and other organisations as well as other zoos and aquariums to further our knowledge of marine species and their biology. They are also deeply involved in a European programme to improve the culture techniques for food species used for marine organisms and to discover new food species which are amenable to mass culture.
* Education: The Oceanium is designed to convince visitors of the beauty and value of the seas so that they will be willing to contribute to the protection of these habitats.
* Species Conservation: Rotterdam Zoo is committed to the principle of maintaining viable populations of endangered species in captivity and is involved in more than eighty  international breeding programmes which are designed to increase the populations of endangered species. To date the majority of international breeding programmes are devoted to mammals with a lesser number for birds and reptiles but very few for fish. In the future more programmes are envisaged for the purpose of raising endangered fish and other marine organisms. It is already involved in such a programme for seahorses (which are threatened worldwide but particularly in Asia where they are over-exploited for traditional medicine). With the facilities offered by the Oceanium, Rotterdam Zoo will be able to play a pioneering role in the development of those techniques which form the basis of such programmes for fish. Rotterdam Zoo hopes that in the future it will be able to breed most of the marine organisms housed in the Oceanium. Currently staff are working hard on developing techniques for the breeding of various species of shrimps (we have been successful with three different species already!) and jellyfish as well as both soft and stony corals.
* Supporting conservation in situ: Rotterdam Zoo offers support, both financial and practical, to a limited number of conservation projects in the field. Financial support is provided by the Bernhardine Fund, which is the zoo's own conservation fund. All projects supported must be related to one of the central activities of the zoo, such as the opening of a new exhibit or exhibit complex. One of the projects which Rotterdam Zoo has selected to support to mark the occasion of the opening of the Oceanium, is to sponsor the tracking of "Peddel 02", named after Peddel 01, a sea turtle which was the first animal to be released into the Oceanium.
For more information: Rotterdam Zoo
Peddel 2's Migration Map
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