Hostivař Wild Garden

Hostivař Wild Garden is a freely accessible zoo corner by the gamekeeper’s lodge at the edge of the Hostivař forest park, open all year round. It is part of the Prague Wildlife Rescue Centre and serves as a substitute home for animals with a permanent medical or other disability. It has operated as a zoo corner since 1970, making it the oldest of all the forest zoo corners we run in Prague. 

On the site you will find a large enclosure for a group of unique white fallow deer, an enclosure for mouflon with a stone map of the nearby Hostivař reservoir, a small apiary, and a pond for swans, swan geese, Muscovy ducks and mandarin ducks. In winter you are also likely to spot other waterfowl, for which the pond serves as a winter refuge. A walking viewpoint path winds around the water through the middle of the zoo corner. The present layout was created in a major rebuild in 2016, when we built new enclosures, laid out paths and raised viewing points for visitors, and planted the whole garden.

The long gabion fence enclosing the large fallow deer enclosure has, besides its obvious purpose, one more important role: we turned it into the largest insect hotel in the Czech Republic. The wire structure is filled with natural materials such as stones, logs, reed stems and cones, leaving a wealth of varied hiding places for insects and other small visitors. These useful little pollinators and pest controllers can shelter here in bad weather and lay eggs in the passages and chambers, from which a new generation hatches. The insect hotels give visitors a glimpse into the life of otherwise inconspicuous insects, and give the insects a substitute home, since suitable shelter in the wild keeps disappearing.

The walking viewpoint path through the middle of the zoo corner has been temporarily closed since 20 July 2026!