A nature and landscape complex in a post-industrial landscape on the border of Chorzów, Bytom and Piekary Śląskie.
Żabie Doły is a nature and landscape complex covering 226.2 ha on the border of three cities: Bytom, Chorzów and Piekary Śląskie. It arose in a post-industrial landscape of water reservoirs, subsidence hollows and spoil heaps, and today it is an important habitat for waterbirds.
The water reservoirs are former flotation settling ponds of the Orzeł Biały Mining and Smelting Works. The area was also shaped by subsidence hollows and spoil heaps left by the extraction of zinc-lead ores and limonite, and by ground subsidence after hard coal mining by the Barbara-Chorzów mine.
The nature and landscape complex was established in 1997 by a regulation of the Katowice voivode. The aim was to protect animal habitats, above all of waterbirds.
129 species of birds have been recorded here, 76 of them breeding. The population of the little bittern is especially important. Other species mentioned include the Eurasian bittern, marsh harrier, lapwing, mute swan, grebe, penduline tit and common nightingale.
Mammals include the hedgehog, mole, weasel, red fox and brown hare, and sometimes roe deer and wild boar. The complex has also been recorded as home to several hundred species of insects, 12 species of snails and 9 species of amphibians, from which the name of the place comes.
The area has surfaced walking paths with a total length of about 9,450 metres. They were laid out on the course of a dismantled railway line no. 145 and a narrow-gauge line. The surface is made of a mineral-resin mixture.
In 2012 the Maciejkowice Agricultural Production Cooperative transferred 53 hectares of land in this area to Chorzów.
On the Chorzów side, close by, are the Prezydent Shaft and the Teatr Rozrywki, and about five kilometres further the Silesian Park. It is about four kilometres to the Upper Silesian Ethnographic Park.
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