2. Darıca Faruk Yalcin Zoo and Botanical Garden is
located in Darıca equidistant from İstanbul where is
the biggest city and from Kocaeli where is the
second richest city of Turkey. It takes one hour both
from İstanbul and Kocaeli to Darica. Darica is also a
place with green areas and fresh air.
Our zoo and botanical park is built in a land of 80
acres where the animals and plants live together
depicting almost a natural habitat. Thus, visitors can
have chance to the animals and the plants together,
which is nearly impossible to see them in nature
otherwise.
Our zoo has 255 animal species over 3000 animals
and has 600 plant species over 800 plants living
together.

3. Our mission;
To develop natural and environmental awareness,
to contribute to the sustainability of animal-plant
and human integrity and to increase social
sensitivity. To provide the animals and plants under
the protection in our zoo with almost real habitats
in order to increase their lives quality, to reproduce
them with care.
Our vision;
‘’A world friend with nature and environment loving
the animals and plants’’

4. Our goals;
Our main duty is to work on the protection of
nature and environment. To support the
reproduction of especially endangered animal and
plant species under appropriate conditions, to
share the increasing population with other zoos for
free. We aim to protect and reproduce the animals
and plants which have been endangered especially
in Anatolia.

5. OUR HISTORY
Our zoo has been started building in Darica –Bayramoglu in
1990 as the first private Turkish zoo. At the outset, we
started collecting the most important species of birds
available all around the world with under the title of «Bird
Paradise». The park was opened to the public in 1993.
The construction and developing of the park took a lot of
time, patience and financial power.
In addition to the birds, other animal and plant species have
been brought to our park since 1995 and also new lands
have been added to the park, which is our present view.
We have turned our zoo to a structure entertaining children
and teaching children about Natural and environmental
conservation wtih a new vision since 2010.
These services to the public were created without any for of
profit.

6. Our garden is presently in a position of a green
island among unplanned constructions as a
cultural center where the visitors can rest, have
fun and have educational resources.
Vets and Biologists keep working in our zoo for
animal nutrition, social enrichment breeding
and animal diseases and treatments by creating
almost similar habitat conditions which animals
live in their habitats. As for the plants, the staff
employed in landscaping and agriculture
branches is assigned to keep and breed the
plant species and to create collections of
species.

7. We as Faruk Yalcin zoo and Botanical garden;
● We have been the first full member of EAZA
(European Association of Zoos and Aquaria)in
Turkey for 16 years.
Thus, we have been improving and developing our
zoo by sharing the quality and application
standards and experiences of European
Association of Zoos and Aquaria.
We exchange our animal species for the animal
species of member zoo free of change. Sales of
endangered animal species in EAZA is forbidden
and we never take animals from nature except the
animals needing treatment and care which are
officially sent us.

8. • This is the zoo located on 80 acres of land
possessing countless of species with a population of
255 animal species and over 3.000 animals
registered by the Ministry of Forestry in our
country.
180 animal species we have are endangered and 60
species of them require a critical level of
conservation. In addition, there are in our zoo 15
animal species of Anatolia which are endangered.

9. ● We are «Center for Conservation and Recovery
of Wild Animals» licensed by the Department of
Water Affairs and Forestry of Marmara.
The injured animals in need of care, which are
found in nature are treated and kept in our animal
hospital and quarantine. After their treatments,
they are delivered to the executives to be released
to nature. In case those animals may not live in
nature in spite of the treatments, they are allowed
to live in our zoo.

10. ● We are among the rich botanical gardens with
600 plant species in out country.
Half of the botanical diversity we have is exotic
species. With this aspect, we are one of the
prominent botanical centers of our country and
region. Our plant population is over 8000.
● We are «a living center for gene» approaching
Fauna and Flora together.
Our another approach, is that we have started
collecting beneficial and curative medicinal plants
for animals. Our garden depicts almost habitats
where plants and animals live together.

11. ● We are an education center
In addition to our educations such as conservation of
nature and the environment, botany, the importance of
biodiversity and the conservation of endangered species
we provide in our zoo with student groups in our 3
classrooms each taking 150 students technologically
equipped, including interactive and rational learning. Thus,
we are in a position of active education center educating
the students of pre-school and elementary school,
elementary, and middle school and high school, vocational
high school and religious high school. In addition, we are
the first to deliver an educational presentation called
'Creatures of Our Environment' to students with
intellectual disabilities at all levels in the zoos of Turkey.
The students recognize animals and plants after our
presentation by following our professional guides. The
students with intellectual disabilities who benefit from
these services are enabled to keep close contact with
animals as therapy sessions.