Radosław Ratajszczak

Radosław Ratajszczak was born on 9 March 1957 in Myślibórz, a town in what is now the West Pomeranian region of Poland. His father was a forester, and he grew up with an interest in the natural world. He spent his childhood in Poznań, where he attended the Karol Marcinkowski High School, one of the oldest schools in the city, and passed his final examinations in 1976.

According to the Wrocław Zoo, he published his first scientific papers while he was still a secondary school pupil. He then studied biology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

In 1981 he began work at the Poznań Zoo, starting as an animal keeper. He remained there for about 25 years and spent the last twelve of them as deputy director. Among his research interests was the white stork, and he co-wrote studies on the bird's diet and digestion in captivity.

In January 2007 he became director of the Wrocław Zoo, one of the oldest zoos in Poland. He found a garden with a long history but in need of modernisation. In 2010 the zoo was turned into a commercial company, which gave it the financial flexibility to invest, and he became its president. He said on taking the job that he wanted to run the zoo for the animals and not for his own fame.

Over fifteen years the zoo grew from about 500 species to more than 1,100. New facilities included the Odrarium, devoted to the wildlife of the Oder river, and modern enclosures for lynxes, wolves, Indian rhinos and okapis. Wrocław became the first zoo in Poland to keep okapis and manatees, and the zoo recorded world first hatchings of Philippine scops owls and Palawan hornbills.

His best known achievement was the Afrykarium, which he conceived and which opened in the autumn of 2014. Described by the zoo as the only oceanarium in the world devoted to the fauna of Africa, it became one of the most visited attractions in Lower Silesia. He also created an education department at the zoo and in 2016 founded the DODO Foundation, which supports projects to protect endangered species in their natural habitats.

Beyond Wrocław, he trained customs officers in enforcing the CITES convention on trade in endangered species and served as a mentor to zoos seeking membership of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria. He was the first Pole to sit on the council of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and in 2015 the Wrocław Zoo hosted the EAZA annual conference.

At the end of February 2022 he stepped down as president and moved to Vietnam, where he took charge of the primate conservation programme at the Endangered Primate Rescue Center in Cúc Phương National Park, working to save critically endangered primates.

He was a popular communicator about animals. He wrote five books on the subject, including Najdziwniejsze zwierzęta (The Strangest Animals) and 100 niezwykłych zwierząt świata (100 Extraordinary Animals of the World), both published by Publicat in Poznań in 2005, and he translated books about animals from English into Polish. The zoo said he could talk about animals in a way that held the attention of staff, visitors and journalists alike.

Radosław Ratajszczak died on the morning of Wednesday 28 October 2026, aged 69. His death was announced by the press office of Wrocław City Hall, which said he would be remembered as a man of great passion, vision and devotion to nature. The cause of death was not made public.

The Wrocław Zoo said it had received the news with great sadness and described him as a zoologist and visionary. Tributes were carried by Radio Wrocław, RMF FM, Polsat News and Gazeta Wyborcza. Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of the first reports.

He is remembered in Wrocław as the man who modernised the city's zoo and brought it into the first rank of European zoos, and above all as the creator of the Afrykarium. His conviction that zoos exist mainly to protect species shaped the work of the DODO Foundation, which continues to fund conservation projects worldwide.

In 2022 he received the EAZA award for lifetime achievement and the Heini Hediger Award, the highest distinction given by WAZA. He was an honorary professor of the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, was named Wrocław Citizen of the Year in 2015, and in 2024 received the gold Honorary Badge of Merit for the Lower Silesian Voivodeship.