The plan was to open in 2023. Zoo Leipzig opened Feuerland on September 1, 2026, three years late and 30 million euros spent, with a swimming pool holding more than five million liters of water and a tunnel running more than 100 meters underneath it.
Feuerland, named for Tierra del Fuego, occupies the southern tip of the zoo’s South America section and is themed on the Pacific coast of that continent. Leipzig’s city council approved the financing in early May 2021, and the ceremonial first dig happened the same month.
What the money bought
The main pool holds over five million liters. A wave machine keeps the water moving, and beach areas give the animals somewhere to get out and rest.
The tunnel is the piece visitors will talk about. More than 100 meters long with 360-degree views, it takes guests from the penguins down to the seals and sea lions, so that the animals are swimming above and around them rather than on the far side of glass. It arrived in three sections; the first two, 12 and 14 meters long, were lifted into place in November 2025.
“Die Millimeterarbeit hat allen Beteiligten hoechste Vorsicht, Sorgfalt und Konzentration abgefordert.”
The millimeter-precision work demanded the utmost caution, care and concentration from everyone involved.
Prof. Joerg Junhold, director of Zoo Leipzig, in a statement translated from German
In July 2026 the pool was filled, with help from the Leipzig fire department. Junhold turned on the tap. In August the animals moved in behind the scenes, sea lions first, then penguins.
Who lives there
Californian sea lions, Humboldt penguins, seals, Inca terns, marine pelicans, and pudus, a small South American deer, in the landscaped area. Five sea lions already at the zoo made the move: Alice, Hilla, Sissi, Finja and Lio.
The educational program leans on the Humboldt penguins, with learning stations, digital material and film about the coastal landscape and the pressures on it. Leipzig also works on the species in its natural range.
What the EAZA president said, and why it is worth quoting
“Leipzig setzt Massstaebe. Feuerland ist mehr als eine neue Tieranlage, es ist ein Symbol, was moderne Zoos sein koennen und leisten muessen. Hier sieht man, wie Tierwohl, Besucherbeduerfnisse, Bildung und Artenschutz Hand in Hand gehen.”
Leipzig is setting standards. Feuerland is more than a new animal enclosure, it is a symbol of what modern zoos can be and must achieve. Here you can see how animal welfare, visitor needs, education and species conservation go hand in hand.
Christoph Schwitzer, president of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, in a statement translated from German
That is the head of the European accrediting body standing at a competitor’s ribbon-cutting and calling it the benchmark. European zoos talk to each other more openly about design than American ones tend to, and a public endorsement at that level is a signal to every other EAZA member about what the next decade of building is supposed to look like.
Leipzig’s mayor, Burkhard Jung, called the project Junhold’s life’s work.
The check at the ribbon
At the opening, Michael Weichert, president of the zoo’s friends and supporters association, handed over a check for 300,000 euros. The association has now given the zoo 4.8 million euros in the last five years.
That is the part American readers should notice. A membership organization producing nearly a million euros a year, every year, is the quiet engine behind a project like this, and it is the same model that funds capital work at zoos in the United States.
Source: Zoo Leipzig. Quotations translated from the German.
