Odsherred Zoo Rescue

Odsherred Zoo Rescue is Denmark’s first and only zoo and rescue center for exotic animals in need.

Rescue Zoo is not a traditional tourist-oriented experience where everything is built around sets, exhibits, and entertainment. It is first and foremost a charity and a rescue center for exotic animals in need, where the animals are the focus and their individual needs come first.

As a visitor, you’ll have the opportunity to get a closer look at work that would normally be off-limits to the public. Here, you’ll gain an honest insight into daily life with exotic rescue animals and into the work involved in providing them with a safe and permanent home.

Odsherred Zoo Rescue helps exotic animals in distress from all over Europe and collaborates with rescue centers, authorities, organizations, and transit facilities. The animals come from sources such as illegal private ownership, cases of neglect, the pharmaceutical or cosmetics industries, animal testing, the fur industry, circuses, and other zoos or rescue centers in Europe where they needed a new home.

Odsherred Zoo Rescue has zoo status and is subject to the requirements, approvals, and oversight that apply to zoological facilities in Denmark. This is important because it reassures visitors and supporters that work with the animals takes place within a framework approved by the authorities and to a high professional standard.

However, the park’s identity and purpose are first and foremost as a dedicated rescue center for exotic animals in need. Rescue Zoo does not choose the animals. The animals choose Rescue Zoo.

The center therefore does not actively seek out and select showpieces or specific species for an exhibition. Instead, Odsherred Zoo Rescue makes itself available when exotic animals in distress need help, care, and a new permanent home.

Today, there are about 600 animals representing approximately 100 species living at Rescue Zoo. For this reason, a visit here is not structured around a traditional species list or an exhibition featuring specific types of animals. The animals are not at Rescue Zoo because they were selected. They are there because they needed help.