Watatunga Wildlife Reserve Watatunga Wildlife Reserve

I know they have already accumulated a comprehensive collection of deer and antelope. They are focusing particularly on some species e.g. species of Asian deer that are little-kept by most zoos these days. It sounds rather like Jurassic Park but with Deer rather than Dinosaurs!
 
This is not the first drive through deer park in Norfolk. Park Farm at Snettisham (now called Snettisham Park https://www.snettishampark.co.uk/ ) has done this for decades. You can take rides through the deer, bottle feed the baby deer, and then buy your venison burgers in the cafe and venison to take home from the shop.
 
Andrew Swales said:
This is not the first drive through deer park in Norfolk. Park Farm at Snettisham (now called Snettisham Park https://www.snettishampark.co.uk/ ) has done this for decades. You can take rides through the deer, bottle feed the baby deer, and then buy your venison burgers in the cafe and venison to take home from the shop.
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That sounds like something out of The Simpsons - from petting it to eating it, the full circle of life! Sounds a bit of a bizarre idea to me and I bet a lot of kids visiting have plenty of questions afterwards!
 
Google it...! :) They have been running for years....
I'm not sure that you can choose the one you want though, like a lobster in a restaurant!
Honest, I guess? - but other licensed zoos in the UK run butcheries too, selling their own home produced meat.
Then - other Zoos get complaints from the public when they feed carnivorous animals on meat.
Presumably most Farm Parks send a proportion of their exhibits to slaughter at the end of the season.
Maybe it's just a matter of where you personally draw the line...?
But - it's a funny old world...!
 
Andrew Swales said:
Google it...! :) They have been running for years....
I'm not sure that you can choose the one you want though, like a lobster in a restaurant!
Honest, I guess? - but other licensed zoos in the UK run butcheries too, selling their own home produced meat.
Then - other Zoos get complaints from the public when they feed carnivorous animals on meat.
Presumably most Farm Parks send a proportion of their exhibits to slaughter at the end of the season.
Maybe it's just a matter of where you personally draw the line...?
But - it's a funny old world...!
Click to expand...

As you probably know there's also Johnson's farm shop in Old Hurst, which combines a butcher's shop with a small zoo housing some surprising taxa including Nile Crocodiles.
 
Andrew Swales said:
This is not the first drive through deer park in Norfolk. Park Farm at Snettisham (now called Snettisham Park https://www.snettishampark.co.uk/ ) has done this for decades. You can take rides through the deer, bottle feed the baby deer, and then buy your venison burgers in the cafe and venison to take home from the shop.
Click to expand...

This reminds me of the (very entertaining) Gatorland in Kissimmee, Florida. You learn everything there is to know about gators, see many other crocodilians, then get to the cafe/snack bar and you've got gator steaks, gator burger, and gator nuggets on the menu. Quite nice, a bit like chicken though.
 
NigeW said:
This reminds me of the (very entertaining) Gatorland in Kissimmee, Florida. You learn everything there is to know about gators, see many other crocodilians, then get to the cafe/snack bar and you've got gator steaks, gator burger, and gator nuggets on the menu. Quite nice, a bit like chicken though.
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I think that is what is planned for the farm shop mentioned above, save that of course the UK climate is hardly great for the commercial farming of reptiles. If the public and the antis are OK with 'bambi-burgers' along with pork, water buffalo and other produce being sold by Zoos, it will be interesting to see how crocodile is accepted.
 
Watatunga have announced the arrival of a further three male great bustards. These birds, which hatched earlier this year, came from the Great Bustard Group as they were unfit for release on Salisbury Plain; instead they will become part of the planned captive breeding programme at Watatunga.

Information comes from the Watatunga Facebook page.
 
Pertinax said:
Is it definately four? There is a video showing their arrival/release and it looked like 1.2. Perhaps another has come seperately?
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I seem to remember there were at least 3 but I'll check my photos when I get home and see if I can see all if them together (my husband thinks 4).
It's a great environment at Watatunga, so much space and the environment is great.
 
I have just seen on Watatunga's Facebook page that a new Malayan sambar calf has been born.

Also, I noticed a post on their Facebook from 23rd August that confirms the reserve plans to get markhor; I know that they were mentioned in the original plans but it is nice to get the confirmation that they are still being planned for.
 
I went on a tour at 5:00pm today at Watatunga. It was a really great tour and probably the most unique zoological experience I have had in the UK. On today's tour, we were taken on a new route that went through part of the woodland that has apparently not been taken before. Along the tour, managed to see nineteen different captive species/subspecies:
- Western roe deer (at least one)
- Pere David's deer (four individuals)
- Malayan sambar (three individuals)
- Indian sambar (a single hand-reared female)
- Axis deer (a female with a well-grown young)
- Indian hog deer (five or six individuals)
- Barasingha (a single hand-reared male)
- Red deer (a single hand-reared male)
- Blackbuck (probably fifteen in all)
- Kafue Flats lechwe (four individuals)
- Blesbok (two individuals)
- Roan antelope (three individuals)
- Scimitar-horned oryx (a lone male)
- Domestic water buffalo (two individuals)
- European mouflon (at least six individuals)
- Helmeted guineafowl (three free-roaming adults, around half-a-dozen juveniles in a pre-release cage)
- Silver pheasant (a single male)
- Great bustard (four males)
- European white stork (a lone male)
- Ruddy shelduck (a single individual)

Also saw some interesting wildlife, including a brown hare and a green woodpecker. It was also interesting to hear about the amount of work going on to attract native wildlife to the reserve.

Some things of interest I heard on the tour include:
  • as well as the four on-show male bustards, there is also a breeding pair and two females elsewhere
  • the brochure that contained the species list mentioned several pheasants: the golden, Lady Amherst's, silver, Reeve's, Edward's, cheer, copper and Hume's are the ones I remember
  • they are looking for a new female white stork; the pair were older than originally thought on arrival and the female died soon after arrival
  • the male roan antelopes may be moved as part of a reintroduction programme to a breeding centre in Eswatini
 
Does that mean they are subspecific? Otherwise, there is little point in any reintroduction
 
DesertRhino150 said:
Watatunga have announced the arrival of a further three male great bustards. These birds, which hatched earlier this year, came from the Great Bustard Group as they were unfit for release on Salisbury Plain; instead they will become part of the planned captive breeding programme at Watatunga.

Information comes from the Watatunga Facebook page.
Click to expand...
Ambitious project!

Any information on when they expect to start receiving female great bustards and building breeding compounds for them?
 
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