South Lakes Wild Animal Park Safari Zoo 2017 news

I was shocked at how many animals have died there, Were the 2 giraffe (calf & adult) that died in the past 18 months these pure-bred Peralta ? I fear that unless Gill moves away from the zoo altogether, there will always be this cloud hanging over it. I do feel for the keepers though as they must get judged for working there regardless of their good intentions, I hope that eventually this zoo can move forward without any involvement from Gill
 
Giraffes - yes the breeding male (after slipping on the floor of the new house and being unable to stand afterwards) and a two week old male calf due to an infection
 
This place must be closed down asap surely, before CRAPS have a field day & start demanding even more publicly that every respectable zoo is closed too! This is the first time I've bothered to post on this thread because basically it's boring, but I've had enough of this zoo reflecting on the rest of the UK zoo community!
 
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So 3 giraffe deaths (including Bella the calf ) 2 of which could have been prevented, such a shame :( Is there any areas in this zoo that is good ?
 
simon lloyd said:
in a ideal world the council would close s/lakes temporarily whilst a whole new set of staff could be put in place starting from now , sadly we live in anything but a ideal world :-(
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New this, New that, New management, whatever..... Gill will still always be up there as he OWNS the place, and whatever "new" you put up there, they wont be able to over ride him. he is a very extreme dominant presence (we call them bully's) and as most of the staff would tell you, he has and will always, dominate every single aspect up there, till the very last minute. The council know this and this will "taint" any "new" management, but certainly the one that has an application in at the moment because some think that although the "new" management say they are "new", if they couldn't in the true word "care" for these animals and over ride that bully, Whats different? He is still up there. And was seen about a fortnight there with his Crocodile Dundee cowboy hat and walkie talkie. Just calling themselves "new" after the things they have allowed for over 10 years, some feel that nothing can ever clean them. In my opinion, behind the midst of the fog, Yesterday, without being able to say it, that's the future that council saw.
 
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The aftermath.
I did not catch all the media coverage of the SLSZ licence refusal: but I was not particularly impressed with some of the pieces I heard on the radio. I suppose it was inevitable that people from CAPS and Born Free would want to get their point across, but I was somewhat confused by an interview with Simon King (the film maker and naturalist) who seemed to have no clear point of view at all.
I was disappointed not to hear any comment from the zoo world. Of course I don't know whether the producers chose not to approach anyone, or whether no zoo person wished to go on the record. BIAZA has made no statement, perhaps because SLSZ is not a member. EAZA has a long-winded statement on its website, which is distinctly underwhelming, pointing out that SLSZ had been relegated to temporary membership of the organisation after an EAZA inspection in 2015 and promising to work with new management, see LATEST NEWS » EAZA
What I want to hear is a clear statement that David Gill deserved to lose his licence and that this case has shown that the zoo licensing system is a very clumsy way of regulating zoos. There should be discussions about how the system can be improved (although I doubt if this government will be interested in changing the law while it is so preoccupied with taking England back to the 1950s and simultaneously ignoring Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland).
I do hope that Mr Gill will not appeal and that a prompt and clear decision can be made about the new management's application. Delays will not benefit either the animals or the staff at the zoo.
 
Was South Lakes always like this, or was it a much better place when he first opened it, and standards have slowly fallen over the years until it got to the current situation?
 
Pertinax said:
Was South Lakes always like this, or was it a much better place when he first opened it, and standards have slowly fallen over the years until it got to the current situation?
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It has pretty much always been like this except that 10 to 15 years ago the enclosures were alot newer, part of the problem is that nobody knows more than Mr Gill does about enclosure design, hence you get the council telling him he needs a pool inside the Pygmy Hippo house, so instead of doing that he builds a new house, still without a pool in it.
 
Mr Gill's solicitor, Steve Walker said the numbers of animals who died should be taken in context and said the mortality rate at Chester Zoo was worse. Is that correct?
 
Clouded Leopard said:
Mr Gill's solicitor, Steve Walker said the numbers of animals who died should be taken in context and said the mortality rate at Chester Zoo was worse. Is that correct?
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Yes but at Chester their total includes inverts and fish and they have an awful lot more of them ,than this place does .So as Mr Trump would say we're using alternative facts .
 
Clouded Leopard said:
Mr Gill's solicitor, Steve Walker said the numbers of animals who died should be taken in context and said the mortality rate at Chester Zoo was worse. Is that correct?
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I doubt Chester takes young animals from the parents to allow thier children to pet them and pose for photographs. which thsi zoo is reported as doing.
 
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taun said:
I thought you had to have one to house certain animals and a zoo licence was just to be allowed to be open to the public?

Learn something new every day if you don't... :)
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Zoo licence trumps DWA, don't require the latter if you have a zoo licence.
 
Some thoughts:
This has been on the cards for some time and the reality is that the Barrow council should've been stronger against the obvious long-term flouting of regulations. His ideas that were suppossed to be 'revolutionary' were just covering up poor husbandry and poor managment style. Karma was always going to catch up with Gill.
Gill also burnt his bridges with the rest of the zoo world particularly in the UK. He won't get any sympathy from them. That said the zoo world needs to stand up and also distance itself from the South Lakes situation via the media. I did happen to see the CEO of BIAZA on BBC Breakfast this morning, so at least the message is getting out there past the animal righters.
The zoo, while it had it's problems from the start, didn't look too bad (but nothing special) when I made my one and only visit in 2002. However I had heard about the reputation pre-visit and was also well aware that there was both a high turnover of animals and that he chopped and changed species at a whim. A sad but inevitable conclusion. One can only hope that the remaining residents can be rehomed promptly.
 
Chester Charlie said:
What happens to the animals if this place closes down there will be some that cannot be rehomed,also what happens to the staff?
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Well what hasn't been found a home will be put down,but pretty much everything will have a home.It will be things like his Lions that will have to be put down! As for the staff once they have no animals they are out of work,so they will be looking for jobs,and all the best to them if that happens!
 
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