Photo : Tom56190 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Parc de Branféré
The Branféré Park is a wildlife and botanical park at Le Guerno, in the Morbihan, around an early-nineteenth-century château. The estate, with century-old trees, was shaped by Paul and Hélène Jourde, who wanted to create an "earthly paradise" for animals there, after meeting a maharaja in India. At Hélène Jourde's death, the Fondation de France became owner of the estate.
More than a thousand animals of many species, some of them threatened, live there in semi-freedom in large plains shared among several species, without cages. The park takes part in many European breeding programmes (EAZA) and supports several field conservation projects, notably for primates, Indian rhinoceroses or Gabon grey parrots.
Branféré also houses the École de la Nature, an environmental education centre. Families find discovery routes and a tree-top course, the Parcabout. A pioneer of ethology and awareness-raising, it is today a major hub of environmental education in Brittany.
