Belgrade Zoo: An Immortal Alligator and a Hero Dog

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First opened in July of 1936, the Belgrade Good Hope Garden, or Belgrade Zoo, is one of the oldest zoos in Europe. Muja the Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), its most famous current resident, may be even older. Probably born in the United States, Muja was brought to Belgrade from Germany in 1937 with his mate, and was already a fully-grown adult at the time. Odds are that he is now more than eighty years old.

Muja has not only far exceeded the maximum alligator life expectancy of about fifty years, but has also done so while escaping some near scrapes with death. During the second World War, the Axis bombed the Belgrade Zoo twice, first in 1941 and again in 1944, destroying most of the zoo and killing the majority of the animals. However, both Muja and his female companion survived. She died of natural causes in the 1960s, but Muja remained healthy for decades afterwards, until 2012 when an infection in his right foreleg was diagnosed as potentially fatal gangrene. Zoo officials decided they would have to operate, tying the 440-lb reptile to an operating table, giving him local anesthetic, and amputating part of the limb. Muja made a speedy and full recovery and, as far as anyone knows, could live decades more.

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Occupying about seventeen acres in Kalemegdan Park, in the heart of Serbia’s capital, the Belgrade Zoo is home to about two thousand animals from over 270 species. Other than Muja, one of its most popular exhibits is a collection of albino animals, a tribute to the “white city” (the literal meaning of “Belgrade”) where it is located. The zoo made international news in 2014 when it announced the birth of two white lion cubs. Not only were these two cubs important to the preservation of an exceedingly rare mutation of lion — less than two hundred exist in the wild — but they were also adorable as all heck. The same exhibit also holds white buffalo, white tigers, a white python, and white wallabies.

Some other notable current residents of the zoo include a black leopard, a puma, a cheetah, a jaguar, gray wolves, black bears, polar bears, an elephant, a giraffe, zebras, eagles, owls, parrots, cassowaries, orangutans, chimpanzees, foxes, badgers, otters, and many others.

Even if Muja is the most famous animal in the zoo today, monuments attest to the renown of some of the zoo’s former residents. For example, there is a statue of Sami the chimpanzee, who escaped the zoo in 1988 and explored the streets of Belgrade until Vuk Bojović, the zoo’s charismatic director, found him and brought him back in a taxi cab.

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Perhaps the zoo’s greatest animal of all time, though, was not even one of the exhibits, but the guard dog, Gabi, a female German Shepherd. On the night of June 1987, the guard Stanimir Staníc was patrolling the zoo with Gabi and a second dog, unaware that an escaped jaguar was on the prowl. Before the jaguar got a chance to pounce on Staníc, though, Gabi attacked it, fighting it as the second dog fled and Staníc ran for a phone and called the police. When the police arrived, they at first attempted to return the jaguar to its cage, but eventually realized they would be forced to shoot it. Had it not been for Gabi, the jaguar might have attacked Staníc or even escaped into Belgrade. Gabi was badly injured, but after months of care from vets, hospital personnel, and even concerned volunteers, she made a full recovery and patrolled the zoo for years more.

She is now commemorated with a statue, the inscription of which reads: “Gabi — her heart was stronger than a jaguar.”

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muja_(alligator)

http://www.beozoovrt.rs/vodic/