Burgers' Bush

Opened on June 1, 1988, Burgers' Bush marked a turning point in zoo design by recreating, under an immense glass roof, 1.5 hectares of fully enclosed tropical rainforest that visitors could walk through. Never before had such a complete tropical ecosystem been recreated indoors at this scale: dozens of animal species roam in semi-freedom among hundreds of plant species, along trails winding beneath the canopy. Burgers' Bush's success inspired many zoos around the world to build their own enclosed biomes. Burgers' Zoo's complex has since grown to include other greenhouse ecosystems, such as Burgers' Desert (1994), Burgers' Ocean (2000) with its coral reef, and Burgers' Mangrove (2017). More than thirty years after it opened, Burgers' Bush remains an international benchmark for tropical immersion.