Is There a Zoo in Uruguay?

Yes. Parque Lecocq is Uruguay's zoo and conservation park. It keeps more than 500 animals of 33 species across 120 hectares bordering the Santa Lucía wetlands, and it charges nothing to get in three days out of every week.

What not to miss

Featured location Parque Lecocq Municipality A, Uruguay The park covers 120 hectares next to the protected Santa Lucía wetlands. It belongs to the Montevideo city government and forms part of its protected parks unit. It lies about 19.5 km from the city centre, in a rural rather than urban part of the department.

Parque Lecocq was built from a project by architect Mario Paysée, carried out between 1946 and 1949, on land that once belonged to Francisco Lecocq, an English-educated Montevideo entrepreneur. The city runs it today as a conservation centre rather than a conventional zoo, with a stated mission to help preserve biodiversity nationally and internationally, including conservation plans for species threatened with extinction.

The mammal collection mixes exotic and native species: llamas, addax antelope, common zebra and hamadryas baboons alongside South American animals like capybara, grey fox, crab-eating raccoon and Geoffroy's cat. Parque Lecocq is also known for maintaining one of the world's largest communities of the critically endangered addax antelope. Birds include emus, ostriches, coscoroba swans and peacocks, and the reptile houses hold the Argentine black-and-white tegu and several native turtle species.

Tickets and saving money

As of September 2026, admission is free for everyone on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. On weekends and working public holidays, pedestrians pay $40, cars $200 per vehicle, and motorcycles $80 per vehicle. Children under 12, people with disabilities, and adults over 70 go free at any time, and the park's picnic grills cost nothing extra to use.

Getting there

The park sits on Avenida Luis Batlle Berres, at kilometre 19.200. From the centre, CUTCSA bus lines 127 and 227, COETC line 494, and Comesa (ex-Solfy) lines 1M1, 1M2, 1M4 and 1M11/13/14/15 all serve the park. No advance booking is needed to get in, but leave pets at home — they aren't allowed inside. If you need to call ahead, the park's phone line is staffed Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm.

Best time to visit

The park opens Wednesday to Sunday and on working public holidays, 9am to 5pm. Weekday visits (Wednesday to Friday) combine free entry with a quieter park; weekends bring the admission charge but are the only other days it's open, alongside holidays.

Other wildlife nearby

If you want to see Uruguay's coastal wildlife in the wild, look east to Punta del Este. Isla e Islote de Lobos, 8.1 kilometres off the coast there, joined Uruguay's National System of Protected Areas as the country's first fully oceanic protected area, covering 40 square kilometres of sea around a 43.5-hectare island. It protects two conservation-priority species, the South American fur seal and the sea lion, alongside visiting elephant seals, southern right whales, dolphins, orcas and sea turtles — a very different side of Uruguay's wildlife from what you'll find at the park in Montevideo.