Even more than an eco -friendly wandering in private jet, an association fighting against cruelty towards animals opens a zoo is absolutely paradoxical. However, this is what the Gaia will do, the action group in the interest of animals, in Brussels, in Belgium, on September 9. Except that the future Gaia zoo has nothing to do with what we know.
Tigers, giraffes, monkeys, metering, parrots, crocodiles, elephants, penguins … and even pandas, when it is known how difficult it is for a zoo to obtain specimens of this species. It is an overview of the fauna that visitors will be able to observe in the Gaia zoological park. And not in poor cages of a few square meters, but indeed in the natural environment corresponding to each animal. Lush jungle, African savannah, tropical forest, ice floe … and all this grouped in the former sea station of the Belgian capital.
The first virtual zoo in Europe
Sold like that, we say that there is a wolf, not to mention the animal. And indeed, since it is actually a virtual zoo, the first in Europe, which will not have any living animal and locked up in a cage, however large it is. And the postulate of Gaia, in addition to his logical activism against traditional zoos, is to ask the visitor: “What is a stronger link with wild animals?” Find yourself face to face with a majestic tiger in your natural habitat or see this same tiger do the hundred steps behind bars? ».
Thanks to virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, which Gaia calls the “zoo of the future” will allow visitors to immerse themselves completely alongside animals in their wild habitats. A virtual reality headset put on and we find ourselves walking around with a herd of penguins in the middle of the antarctic tundra. At the bend of a path in the jungle, a tiger shows up and passes a few centimeters from you. All this, “without window, barrier or cage” in “life -size landscapes” that we explore 360 °.
Our thematic file on animals
For Ann de Greff, director of Gaia, “the zoo of the future wants to encourage visitors to question the current treatment of wild animals that have no freedom,” she explains on the association’s website. And rather than stigmatizing zoos, this initiative intends to offer “playful, interactive and innovative alternatives”. Admittedly, at 12 euros the entry at the full price for an adult, it is a small investment. But you do not imagine the price of an expedition to Antarctica to go skating with penguins.