I went to Vienna in July to photograph wildlife, and I spent three days doing it in a cemetery.

That needs some explaining, so here it is: Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof is one of the largest cemeteries in Europe, and it has quietly become one of the most reliable places on the continent to see a critically endangered mammal. It also holds roe deer, red squirrels, kestrels, jays, foxes, and — according to researchers who have been counting since 2021 — around 170 animal species in total. None of this was planned. The cemetery was designed for the dead. The living moved in on their own.

I was there from July 6 to 8, 2026, entering at Gate 2 each morning. This post covers what lives there, where I found it, and how to plan a visit of your own.

Why Cemeteries Work as Habitat

The short answer is that large old cemeteries offer what most of the surrounding landscape no longer does: continuity.

Across Central Europe, farmland has been consolidated into larger fields with fewer hedgerows and margins. Forests have been fragmented by roads. Grassland is mown early and often. For species that need undisturbed ground, mature trees, or a few square meters that stay the same from year to year, a lot of the countryside has stopped working.

A cemetery like the Zentralfriedhof, by contrast, has been left more or less alone for 150 years. It opened on November 1, 1874. It covers 2.5 square kilometers (about 620 acres, or just under one square mile), which makes it a green space larger than many urban parks. It has old trees, dense ivy, watered plantings, no traffic, no pesticides on the scale used in agriculture, and — critically — humans who move slowly, stay on paths, and go home at closing time.

Since 2021, a citizen science project run by the University of Vienna together with Friedhöfe Wien, called Biodiversität am Friedhof, has documented roughly 170 animal species and around 200 plant species at the Zentralfriedhof alone. Vienna’s cemeteries together hold an estimated 70 to 100 European hamsters, a species now classified as critically endangered.

The wildest section is the Alter jüdischer Friedhof — the old Jewish cemetery — in the eastern part of the grounds, roughly between Gate 1 and Gate 11. Large parts of it have been left unchanged since 1916. The grass grows tall and is not mown. Stones lean and sink. Ivy covers everything. It is, without much competition, the best wildlife habitat inside the walls, and it was where I spent most of my time.

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What Lives There

Roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)

I found deer almost exclusively in the old Jewish cemetery, in the stretch between Gate 11 and Gate 1. The tall unmown grass gives them cover and food, and the density of old headstones means there is always something to step behind. However, they can be found here and there in other parts of the cemetery as well, especially if there’s (noisy) maintenance work being done in their favorite spots.

They are used to people, but not indifferent to them. Walking with obvious purpose sends them off; drifting slowly, stopping often, looking at graves rather than at the animal, and they will carry on browsing.

European hamster (Cricetus cricetus)

This is the species that put the cemetery on the map for wildlife watchers. The European hamster — also called the black-bellied hamster — is a genuinely wild animal, unrelated to the pet species, and it is far larger and more strikingly marked than most people expect: rust-brown above, black underneath, with white patches. It was reclassified as critically endangered in 2020 after steep declines across its western range.

The Zentralfriedhof is one of the few places where it can be seen reliably. It appeared in the BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet, and Friedhöfe Wien now runs guided hamster tours.

I found them in groups 22, 23, 28, and 29 (see map at the bottom of this post) — the open, mown grass squares in the western half of the cemetery, not far from the Park der Ruhe und Kraft. They dig burrows in the grass between graves and are most active in the early morning and again in the afternoon. I also saw one running through the old Jewish cemetery, well away from the usual squares, so they are clearly not confined to the known spots.

Red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)

Common throughout the wooded and older sections. Unlike in much of the UK, red squirrels here face no competition from grays, and the cemetery’s mature trees suit them well. They are noticeably relaxed around visitors.

Common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)

Kestrels were hunting all over the cemetery; I found them in several different sections rather than one reliable spot. The Church of St. Charles Borromeo (the Luegerkirche) at the center of the grounds is a known nesting site, but the birds range widely, and the open mown squares give them exactly the kind of short-grass hunting ground they need.

Hooded crow (Corvus cornix)

Present everywhere, and worth photographing rather than dismissing. The gray-and-black plumage against pale stone is a gift, and hooded crows are alert enough to make good behavioral subjects: caching food, mobbing the kestrels, working the paths after the maintenance crews have been through.

Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius)

Shyer than the crows and harder to photograph, but regular in the wooded sections and the old Jewish cemetery. Listen first — the harsh call gives them away long before you see the blue wing patch.

And the rest

Foxes, European hares, and hedgehogs are all documented residents, along with a long list of insects including the endangered Alpine longhorn beetle. I didn’t photograph any of them on this trip, which is a reasonable argument for going back.

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Visiting the Zentralfriedhof

1) Getting there

The cemetery sits in Simmering, Vienna’s 11th district, on the southeastern edge of the city. Despite the name, it is not central — count on 25 to 30 minutes from the city center.

• Tram 71 is the classic route, running from the Ring (Schwarzenbergplatz, Oper/Karlsplatz, Schottentor) along Simmeringer Hauptstraße with four separate stops along the cemetery’s northern side, one at each of Gates 1 through 4.
• Tram 11 covers the same cemetery stops and connects at Simmering, the terminus of the U3 metro line.
• S7 train stops at Zentralfriedhof station, near Gate 11. This is the line that runs to and from the airport, which makes the cemetery an easy first or last stop on a trip.
• By car, parking is available at Gates 1, 2, 3, 9, and 11, and you can drive inside for a fee on most days.

Route planning and tickets: Wiener Linien. A 24- or 48-hour pass is worth it if you’re visiting more than once.

2) Gates, hours, and getting around inside

Gate 2 (Tor 2) at Simmeringer Hauptstraße 234 is the main entrance and the one I used every day. It has the Infopoint (free printed maps — take one, the grounds are enormous), a shop, audio guides, the funeral museum, e-bike rental, and Café Oberlaa.

Official opening hours are seasonal: April through September, daily 7:00 to 19:00, with Thursdays until 20:00 from May through August; 8:00 to 17:00 in midwinter. Check the official Friedhöfe Wien page before you go. Two practical notes: side gates open up to an hour later and close up to an hour earlier than the main gate, and in practice Gate 2 was already open when I arrived at 6:45 each morning — worth trying if you want the early light.

Admission is free. A free electric shuttle bus runs through the grounds from 10:00, stopping at 19 points, and e-bikes can be rented at Gate 2. The cemetery is 2.5 km (1.5 miles) end to end, so some form of transport is genuinely useful if you want to cover ground between sessions.

There are restrooms scattered throughout the grounds, which matters more than it sounds when you’re walking a site this size.

3) Timing your visit

Early morning is best. Animals are more active, the paths are empty, and the light is better. I arrived at 6:45 and stayed until 3 p.m. each day, which was more than the wildlife activity strictly justified but gave me time to explore.

The thing nobody warns you about is maintenance. On Monday there was work going on across large parts of the cemetery — mowing, tree cutting, and watering with small machines that have surprisingly loud engines. It moves the animals out of whole sections. If you can, plan more than one visit so a noisy day doesn’t cost you the trip.

Weather during my visit was mostly overcast with the sun breaking through occasionally, which suited the subject well: soft light on pale stone, no harsh shadows between the graves.

4) Photography and etiquette

Photographing wildlife here is unproblematic, and nobody bothered me over three days. Photographing graves, funerals, or mourners is a different matter entirely — this is a working cemetery with burials taking place daily. Keep your distance from anything that is clearly private, and stay off the graves themselves.

5) Gear

I worked with two bodies:

• Canon EOS R5 Mark II with the RF 100–500mm. The main wildlife setup, and what did most of the work here — the hamsters, the kestrels, and anything that wouldn’t let me close.
• Canon EOS R5 with the RF 70–200mm f/2.8. Short for wildlife on paper, and it was. But it earned its place on the larger animals, where the wider framing let me include the headstones and lanterns that make these images make sense. At f/2.8 it also rendered the tall golden grass of the old Jewish cemetery into exactly the kind of smooth background I wanted — something the 100–500 can’t quite match at the same distances.

If I had to bring one lens, it would be the 100–500. If I could bring two, I’d bring the same two again.

6) Food

Café Oberlaa at the main entrance is really good, everything you would expect from a Viennese café. I had breakfast and lunch there on all three days, and the cakes are worth the detour on their own.

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What It Means

There is a version of this post that ends on a note about beauty and stillness. I’d rather end on the arithmetic.

A roe deer buck living out his life inside a walled cemetery in the 11th district of Vienna is not there because the cemetery is ideal. He is there because a burial ground on the edge of a city of two million people offers better habitat than a great deal of the countryside beyond it. The same goes for the hamsters, which have declined so severely across France, Germany, and Eastern Europe that a Viennese cemetery now counts as a stronghold.

That’s a useful thing to know when we talk about conservation. Protected habitat doesn’t only look like national parks. Sometimes it looks like ground that nobody has plowed, sprayed, mown, or built on for 150 years — and the reason nobody has is that we set it aside for something else entirely.

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Useful Links

• Cemetery Official Page
• Route Planning & Tickets
• Café Oberlaa
• University of Vienna Biodiversität am Friedhof Project (German only)
• Rudolphina Article (research magazine of the University of Vienna)
  

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Related Posts

• Simple Steps to Improved Biodiversity in the Garden
• How to Help Wildlife in Your Garden During Winter

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