Bristol Zoo (Closed) Bristol Zoo news 2017

Does anyone know if the female Pudu has left the collection? The signage had been removed when I visited on the weekend.

The house in Zona Brazil has had a revamp and now houses Bali starlings and soroco Dove (formerly housed male armadillo), the goldedi remain
 
Travellers have taken over the zoo's temporary summer car park which will make life difficult for visitors.
The dinosaurs have been installed in what I think of as the empty quarter i.e. The area around the old monkey temple.
Visiting the zoo with a for year old, I realised the been benefit of playgrounds, they act as a soak taking families out of circulation so those interested in animals can get better views of them.
 
Ned said:
Travellers have taken over the zoo's temporary summer car park which will make life difficult for visitors.
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This is a bit ironic, since I'm sure the zoo started a petition for continued use of this area recently as the Council wanted to stop the zoo using it for car parking! Not sure where this leaves the zoo now, I doubt the car park holds more than 50 cars and I've only managed to get in there once in last 3 visits & that was at 9am!
 
I had no trouble parking at the side of the road across the Downs, but that was at 8.55 am on a weekday.
 
This could cause a problem in school holidays as the surrounding streets have recently become residents / metered parking during the week.
 
what's a traveller? Is that a new name for gypsies? Or backpackers? Or the band?
 
In UK terminology we have two travelling communities, those of Irish decent for which the term traveller is used and those of eastern European decent (largely Rumanian I think?) termed gypsies. Some people lump them all together but I believe the two cultures are quite distinct. Either way the downs car park is full of caravans.
 
Ned said:
In UK terminology we have two travelling communities, those of Irish decent for which the term traveller is used and those of eastern European decent (largely Rumanian I think?) termed gypsies. Some people lump them all together but I believe the two cultures are quite distinct. Either way the downs car park is full of caravans.
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thanks. Funnily enough (in terms of your mention of Irish and Romanian gypsies), my mother's mother is Irish (but not a gypsy) and her father's side descends from Romanian gypsies.
 
Ned said:
This could cause a problem in school holidays as the surrounding streets have recently become residents / metered parking during the week.
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I used to always park in those side streets, particularly alog the wall by the back of the restaurant/monkey enclosures, but its become almost impossible nowadays to find any spaces anywhere near the Zoo.

I sometimes think the Zoo might do better completely relocating to WildPlace over time. Of course, it would mean a great deal of major building work/expense to relocate all the species, but they would get an awful lot for the Clifton site presumably. Visitors still complain about the lack of space for animals at the Zoo- the Lions seem the biggest issue.
 
I think a small zoo focusing on small, unusual animals would complement Wild Place nicely.
I find it odd, though, how much unused space Bristol has. If you draw a diagonal line from the entrance to the corner where the fur seals are, most animals would be on one side of that line. The other side is mostly gardens.
 
Ned said:
I think a small zoo focusing on small, unusual animals would complement Wild Place nicely.
I find it odd, though, how much unused space Bristol has. If you draw a diagonal line from the entrance to the corner where the fur seals are, most animals would be on one side of that line. The other side is mostly gardens.
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I agree, although in fact this is basically what Bristol already is. In time they will surely move the lions over to be replaced with a smaller cat. I'm sure that at some point they will rebrand Wild Place with a more serious moniker as it develops into a fully-fledged zoo.

I think the lawns at Bristol actually absorb people and make it feel less crowded. The gardens and temple bit not so much.
 
I suggested this earlier in the thread. I appreciate Bristol Zoo is highly regarded, of significant historical interest and one of Britain's best zoos but sentiment and nostalgia should be put to one side for the benefit of the animals. I don't know if it would be a good idea to sell the zoo site to developers or just move the Lions and Gorillas etc but given the size of Wild Place I don't know why more isn't made of it.
I can't begin to imagine how much 12 acres of real estate in Clifton would be worth but the zoo is so landlocked and parking is clearly an issue, I would without hesitation do what is right for the animals and move it all to Cribbs. I'd include Noah's ark in the move too in an ideal world, although they are nothing to do with Bristol Zoo.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
...because there isn't the money to build everything they intend to straight away? :p patience is a virtue in this case; they certainly plan to expand Wild Place massively in the coming decade or two.
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Yes, that's the reason. The problem is Bristol now have three animal collections within a few miles of each other. Can they all prosper? But the idea of moving the huge collection of mainly smaller species from the old Victorian site out to the country, even if done over years, would be a huge undertaking. And what would happen to the Zoo site itself. There are historic buildings etc on it with preservation orders. But with the parking and general space issues I sometimes think, and much as I have great memories of Bristol Zoo, both past and present, that maybe the time has come for something major to happen there.

The Lions is really a seperate smaller issue- I think they could relieve a lot of critisism simply by moving them to WildPlace and replacing them with a smaller species.
 
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But by moving the Lions, you lose a huge drawcard for families to visit the Zoo... (and hence spend Money) What could they replace them with (using the current enclosure) of equal attraction??
 
I wonder how many people visit the zoo because they might see an Asiatic Lion?
Personally I think a Koala exhibit would be a crowd pleaser like Vienna's equivalent. You don't see them in many zoos and I know it's down to the availability of browse but the enclosure is far too small for Lions and would work well as an Australian exhibit with another ground dwelling marsupial. But that's just me playing fantasy zoos again I suppose.
 
I reckon there are more suitable places one could put Koala within the zoo, truth be told!

In terms of crowd-pleasing marsupial species which might do well in that exhibit, I'd be more inclined to suggest Tasmanian Devil.
 
When I visited Bristol 10 days ago, my thoughts returned to the question of what could be done with the ex-wallaby walk-through, once the animatronic dinosaurs have been extinguished by a virtual asteroid. It is very tall and it could accommodate quite a large species of bird, or indeed the Livingstone's fruit bats, if they didn't already have a suitable enclosure. I can't see any bird species that might visit the ground co-existing with Tasmanian devils: I'd put them in the meerkat exhibit - I have never been able to work out why the most sun-loving mammal in the zoo has such a shaded enclosure. I think koala could work in the walk-through, with Barraband's and Princess of Wales parakeets perhaps, but the exhibit would need staffing through the day.
An alternative might be a South American walk-through, a little like the Clore, with a combination like marmosets, sakis, tamandua, armadillos and some nice birds.
I can't imagine Bristol going out of large mammals completely in the foreseeable future. The lions, gorillas and fur seals are important attractions for families with young children. I would try to refit the lion enclosure to make it look larger ;)
 
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