The membership of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) has recently established dedicated biobanking facilities for the European zoo community. This EAZA Biobank aims to be a primary resource for supporting population management and conservation relevant research, and will be an invaluable resource for zoo and wildlife veterinarians and breeding programme managers. The EAZA Biobank aims to hold blood / DNA / tissue and serum from as many individual animals in European zoos, and is designed such that samples are registered in the global zoos’ Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS) and are primarily available to benefit efforts ensuring the genetic and physical health of intensively managed zoo populations. These biological samples enable detailed genetic and genomic analyses, which is rapidly becoming become a key tool to increase the chance of success of the European Ex-situ Programmes (EEPs), for example by improving the knowledge of relatedness and paternity issues, resolving taxonomic uncertainty, identifying the origin of individuals to help set up the correct breeding groups, and ensure that, as far as possible, captive populations represent the genetic diversity of their wild counterparts. Additionally, the unique coupling of whole blood and serum samples will enable medical / epidemiological research of interest for veterinarians, and enable e.g. disease surveillance of infectious diseases at small- as well as meta-population level, enable retrospective surveys, veterinary molecular diagnostics and identifying genetically inherited diseases. The EAZA Biobank is jointly hosted and funded by Copenhagen Zoo, RZSS Edinburgh Zoo & National Museums of Scotland, the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, and the Antwerp Zoo Society, and works in close collaboration with similar initiatives.