Parc de Clères (Animal and Botanical Park)

The park was founded in 1919 by Jean Delacour, a pioneering French-American ornithologist who created Europe's first private zoo. Delacour revolutionized zoo design by introducing the 'semi-liberty' concept, allowing animals to roam freely in the park rather than being confined to traditional cages - a practice that was groundbreaking at the time.

The château suffered devastating losses during World War II. In February 1939, a fire destroyed the main building along with Delacour's precious library and scientific archives. Then in May-June 1940, the property was bombed. Heartbroken, Delacour moved to the United States in December 1940, working at the Bronx Zoo and Los Angeles Museum. The park only reopened in 1947 through a fundraising campaign organized from New York.

The park follows an unusual visitor rule: 'The lawn is the territory of the animals - you must stay on the paths.' Unlike traditional zoos where animals are confined to enclosures, here about 1,000 animals roam freely across the 13-hectare grounds, including flamingos, cranes, wallabies, and antelope. Visitors walk through their habitat as guests, not the other way around.

Since introducing a pair of endangered red pandas in 2019, the park has celebrated three successful births in just five years, contributing to European breeding programs for this vulnerable species. With only about 10,000 red pandas remaining in the wild due to deforestation and poaching, each birth at Clères represents a small but significant conservation victory.