Sakkarbaug Zoo

Sakkarbaug Zoological Garden, also called the Junagadh Zoo, covers 84 hectares at Junagadh in Gujarat. It was founded in 1863 by Mohabat Khanji II of Junagadh State and is described as the oldest zoo in India. Its chief role is breeding purebred Asiatic lions, which survive in the wild only in the nearby Gir Forest; it is the largest centre in the national captive breeding programme, with nearly 150 lions bred by 2008, and has traded lions with other zoos at home and abroad.

In 2008 the zoo housed 525 mammals, 597 birds and 111 reptiles in 100 enclosures. In 2009 it became the only zoo in India with African cheetahs, received from Singapore in exchange for three lions. It also takes part in a breeding programme for white-backed vultures, whose first chicks hatched here in 2011, and a natural history museum in the veterinary hospital displays the skeletons of two Asiatic lions and other animals.