Animal world Basel Zoo celebrates its anniversary with a huge cake

Basel Zoo celebrated its 150th anniversary on Wednesday. Director Olivier Pagan invited the public to eat a birthday cake measuring around two by two meters. This represented the "Zolli" with numerous animals.

Whether giraffe, hippopotamus, lion, flamingo or chimpanzee: some of the zoo's inhabitants decorated the cake in a sweet miniature version from the confectionery. Several companies and private individuals each sponsored one of these animals on the cake.

Pagan thanked them for the "beautiful masterpiece". Despite the rainy weather, there was a huge rush of visitors to the cake, which was sheltered under a tent roof.

To mark its anniversary, Switzerland's oldest zoological garden charged an entrance fee of 50 centimes - just as it did on July 3, 1874, when it opened its doors for the first time. Children up to the age of 15 could visit the zoo for free on its 150th birthday. In addition to cutting the cake, the zoo celebrated with other attractions such as food gifts for the animals and a birthday movie.

"The zoo is an institution that is so closely linked to the city that it would be unimaginable without it," said Conradin Cramer, President of the Government of Basel, in his speech. With its location right next to the city, the "Zolli" stands for both proximity and cosmopolitanism, for tradition and modernity, Cramer continued.