The Nation­al Zoo­log­i­cal Gar­dens in Sri Lan­ka began its oper­a­tions in 1936. The gov­ern­ment took over the 11 acres of land that belonged to a Ger­man busi­ness­man Jhon Har­gen­beck who had been using the area as a hold­ing ground for ani­mals before they were export­ed to Europe. In 1948 the gov­ern­ment acquired more lands and the area was expand­ed up to 21 acres. The Dehi­wala Zoo had been wide­ly rec­og­nized as a tourist attrac­tion since it had a large col­lec­tion of ani­mals. How­ev­er, its loca­tion in a fast devel­op­ing sub­urb of Colom­bo, has posed a series of con­straints that has lim­it­ed its expan­sion and upgrad­ing to meet the high stan­dards expect­ed of a mod­ern zoo. Hence the zoo author­i­ties were com­pelled to seek alter­na­tive solu­tions to the prob­lems. As a result the brain­child for the Pin­nawala zoo was born.