Zoo am Meer Bremerhaven

In the location's words:

In 1912 - Bremerhaven was doing quite well thanks to fishing and shipping - a new landing stage was to be built for the steamers of North German Lloyd. A waiting hall with a restaurant and fish food hall as well as an aquarium as an attraction were planned. The Deputation for Ports and Railways in Bremen agreed, and so the Strandhalle with the North Sea Aquarium was built as the nucleus of the Zoo am Meer.

Senior teacher Dr. Heinrich Lübben set to work with dedication and expertise and the opening took place on August 1, 1913. However, Dr. Lübben wanted more and convinced the Bremerhaven city authorities of the need for expansion. On June 24, 1928, the animal grottoes opened their doors and then as now, polar bears, seals and sea lions were among the attractions. The zoologists from Bremerhaven achieved many unique breeding successes: 1932 breeding success with the spectacled penguins, 1933 the first breeding of a seal in human care, the legendary polar bear breeding, which still occupies a leading position with 29 polar bears, and later in the 1980s the first breeding of gannets in human care. At the beginning of the 1980s, the animal grottos were renamed Zoo am Meer, but the people of Bremerhaven still affectionately call their zoo the "animal grottos".