The Schmiding Zoo is located in the municipality of Krenglbach in Upper Austria, about ten kilometers north of Wels. It developed from Austria's largest bird park, the Schmiding Bird Park, opened in 1982.
Today, the zoo presents the animal world of various regions of the world on an area of 13 hectares. Along the 4 km long tour, visitors come across giraffes, monkeys, white rhinos, crocodiles, red pandas, Austria's only gorillas, Siberian tigers, sloths and exotic birds.
The zoo, the aqua zoo and the arthropod zoo were built on the grounds of Schmiding Castle, which was first mentioned in 1100.
In addition to numerous outdoor enclosures, the zoo has the largest walk-in aviary for birds of prey (25,000 m³) in the world, as well as a tunneled tiger enclosure and an African house in which ruffed lemurs move freely.
The habitat of the gorilla bachelor group in Schmiding Zoo (Gorilla Bai) is divided into an outdoor area, an indoor area and a sleeping area. The indoor area has tropical air conditioning. The gorillas can choose their location depending on the weather.
Schmiding Zoo is involved in conservation breeding programs, and in 2007 tiger cubs were born. In 2012, a rhinoceros was born for the first time in Austria. Despite initial difficulties, it survived. Two years later, this breeding success was repeated.