| Jardin
des
plantes :  This review submitted by Neils Johs. Legarth Iversen January
2001
The Ménagerie du Jardins des Plantes, Paris, once was
a dreadful place, with small cages, rusty wire all over and
a terrarium that smelt like an open sewer. I visited it several
times during the seventies because it was conveniently placed,
close to the Gare d'Austerlitz and to the Jardin des Plantes
with its museums and other attractions. But it was not a pleasure
to be there. Then somewhere during the eighties the powers
that be must have decided that enough was enough, and from
then on things have changed dramatically for the better.
Now
the Menagerie has become a quite respectable zoo which you
don't have to be ashamed to visit. You enter from the Jardin
de Plantes (which is in itself worth a visit: a fine park
dating bach to 1626). The most distinctive exhibit is now slightly
to your left: it is the so called Microzoo, where you can
study
insects and other small animals in a very pedagogical setting.
Absolutely worth seeing, especially if you know some French.
To the left of this building you find bisons and anoas (the
smallest bovines in the wild), and continuing this way round
you pass the reptile house, the vivarium, some birds and
deer. The next house to your left is another interesting newcomer,
a house for the parenting of young animals that can't be
left
with their parents for some reason. Further on, along the
Seine, you pass the bharals and cangaroo.  In this part of the garden
there are also one house for the carnivores and another for
the monkeys. When you continue and see the nilgai and yaks
you are back at the entrance.
Outside, in the Jardin the Plantes, the large building furthest
away from the Seine houses a Museum of Natural History, while
the smaller building opposite houses the Palaeontological
Museunm, with collections dating back to F.Cuvier. The menagerie
is
not new either: I have read somewhere that it was founded
after the French revolution to house the exotic animals from
the
Versailles Gardens, including zebras and rhinos. Furthermore
there is a Vivarium in the rue Cuvier, but I never have visited
this place
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