Oasi Naturalistica di Sant'Alessio

The Oasi di Sant'Alessio is a protected natural area and zoological garden at Sant'Alessio con Vialone in the province of Pavia, entered through the gate of the Castello di Sant'Alessio opposite the parish church. Harry and Antonia Salamon founded it in 1973, buying the castle and its land to breed endangered species for release. A peregrine falcon breeding facility built in 1977 was for over twenty years the most important of its kind in Europe; a black-winged stilt colony founded on birds from Tunisia had bred and released 127 by 1984, and the oasis's white storks spread first through neighbouring villages and then much further.

It is laid out as a tropical section under glass with aquariums and terraria and a large Italian and European section, and it grew up beside an existing heronry, so free-living herons, corvids and passerines are seen alongside the animals in habitats and aviaries. Przewalski's horses, bearded vultures, spoonbills and a family of two-toed sloths are among the residents.