History

The zoo originated from Miroslav Procházka’s private breeding program. He had been involved with crocodiles since his youth at the Young Naturalists’ Station in Písek, where a children’s club kept two crocodiles. He started his own breeding program on his organic farm in Chvalšiny in 1996, when he acquired a pair of caimans. He began building a complete collection of crocodile species in 2000 and has been successfully breeding crocodiles since 2005. Since 2005, he has been building an exhibition area for the zoo in the center of Protivín, in a historic stone barn that was formerly a stable and carriage house (originally a hospital) belonging to the Schwarzenberg Protivín Castle, which stands on the opposite side of the square. He purchased the building from the descendants of the private owner of the carpentry workshop that had previously been located there. He obtained a zoo license under Act No. 162/2003 Coll. from the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic in May 2008 based on an application submitted in January of the same year. The date of the zoo’s establishment is given as June 1, 2008. By 2008, ecological heating technology using heat pumps and the first 11 terrariums out of a total of 30 planned had been built. Since June 2008, large terrariums have been under construction, and by 2012, terrariums on the upper floor of the building are also to be built. The goal is to exhibit all 23 species of crocodiles currently living and to supplement this exhibition with an exhibition of osteological and, to a lesser extent, dermoplastic preparations not only of crocodiles, but also of mammals and other vertebrates. From a breeding perspective, the goal is to establish breeding groups of endangered and critically endangered crocodile species at the zoo and on the farm.

In 2008, the zoo had 16,000 visitors, and in 2009, it had 26,000, or almost 30,000. In 2010, 36,500 people visited, but the zoo’s capacity is not sufficient to accommodate all those interested in visiting.

In 2009, the zoo owner published Atlas krokodýlů (Atlas of Crocodiles), and the proceeds from its sale are used to support the creation of a reserve in Borneo – Lake Mesangat – to preserve the local population of Sunda gharials and Siamese crocodiles.

In 2010, the zoo received a subsidy of CZK 34.6 million for reconstruction at an estimated cost of CZK 47.3 million. The renovation of the building and the construction of new large-scale terrariums took place with the support of the EU fund – ROP Southwest between 2012 and 2015. The number of exhibition terrariums, the largest of which is 120 m², increased to twenty-six, and additional species of crocodiles were added.  

The greatest breeding success came in 2017 with the reproduction of the Indian gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), when a total of seventeen young hatched from eggs laid in March at the beginning of May, thirteen of which grew to an age suitable for transfer to other zoos.

Since 2018, the exhibition has expanded to include white-colored crocodiles, allowing visitors to see albino North American alligators and unique leucistic Nile crocodiles and Sunda gharials. In 2020, the zoo exhibited 23 species of crocodiles, and the number of visitors exceeded 60,000 per year.