The communists wanted to close us down several times. But the fact that Jihlava has a zoo owes, paradoxically, to two of them
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Vladislav Tomáš Jiroušek was born on 21 December 1942 in Dvůr Králové nad Labem in the family of a railway engineer. His parents brought him up in an anti-communist spirit. He spent the war in Engineering Auxiliary Corpses and was not persecuted. He graduated from the agricultural school in Chrudim and later obtained an engineering degree at the University of Agriculture in Brno. In 1967 he joined the children´s zoo in Jihlava, which later transformed into the zoo. He was the director until 2005. He was president of the Union of Czech and Slovak Zoological Gardens and is a life member of the World Organisation of Zoos and Aquariums. He is also a renowned herpetologist - he was also the chairman of the Reptile TAG - a group of advisors to the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA) dealing with reptile breeding in zoos in Europe. He was involved in the construction of the Limassol Zoo in Cyprus. He is married with a son, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. At the time of recording in 2023, he was still publishing, photographing and travelling.
