Thanks for making a thread about this, I feel the same as many of the commentators here.
Sadly, I didn't get to attend on the last day; but I did last visit in July so I did manage to get to say goodbye. I did enjoy having a picnic by the Gorilla statue which now stands alone in time. I cant even remember how many time I visited over the years , it was the first zoo I ever went to as a child.
Its rather surreal that over 1/4 of a year has passed now since its closed, sometimes its hard to believe that something that has been such a constant in our lives (or at least , people like me who visited regularly) is no more.
Maybe this isn't the best comparison, but it makes sense to me anyway - I liken it almost to the passing of the Queen, which coincidentally happened a few weeks after the closure of the Zoo. Its that fixed point in time and a sense of stability, that we almost assume is going to be forever but when it finally ends it inevitably comes as a shock. Life comes at you fast.
It seems as though many of the animals have now moved, I did see a rather heartbreaking video recently of someone flying a drone over the empty Zoo, the only animals that appear to be there are the Lions and the Flamingos. Although this was filmed a few months ago now.
By the sounds of it, there isn't as many animals going to the Wild Place as they seem to claim and I do think that some of the directors of Bristol Zoological Society who have no relationship to Bristol or the area (such as Zimmerman) wouldn't understand how much of a role Bristol Zoo played in the lives of the people who lived there.
There is a group that wish to save Bristol Zoo, they are well intentioned but rather delusional - although they have produced a rather hefty report and a number of other points that does make you ask questions as to what truly made BZS make the decision to close the Zoo, when - In the nine years up to 2020, the Zoo reported annual profits of between £200k and £1.8m.
If anyone is interested in reading the report I can post the link here but the whole thing is 80 pages long, regardless I think its rather sad that they are just going to change the site into yet more housing.
Sadly having read a lot of that 80 page document, it’s miles out.
I think they fail to miss the whole concept of Wild Place and don’t understand that a lot of the enclosures at Bristol needed modernising or changing and that all costs a lot of money.
They also made it clear in the current climate they couldn’t operate two zoos and one would have to give.
They also falsely make out animals don’t have collections to go to, but they have. The Fur Seals are Woburn bound I’m reliably told and the lions were set for Drayton Manor but it fell through and are now going to the Big Cat Sanctuary.
A number of the smaller mammals listed have now left, and of the reptilian species and fish and that, some will end up at Wild Place and others are easily found new homes, but there has been no need to move.
They are also wrong in thinking that the zoo will become a building site whilst the Gorillas are there and even try to make out at some stage the Gorillas were not going to go to Wild Place. All again untrue. The West Car park now as far as I’m aware been granted permission and is likely to be sold soon which will allow for the build of the Gorilla and Mangabey exhibits at Wild Place and so those animals can be moved to the collection in 2024.
Plans for the main site aren’t even expected to be heard until late spring, so a buyer is unlikely to be found until the backend of next year, so no building work would likely start until 24/25 at the earliest.
It’s a shame that despite good intentions that those with this petition, couldn’t have met up with those at Bristol Zoo and been educated with the reasons why it had to close and been shown the benefits of the new zoo, and also learned a bit more about conservation and been advised about species moving on and so on.
Bristol never once said all animals would go to Wild Place, this “saving Bristol Zoo” has just tried to use snippets to use it to suit their agenda.
It’s sad these people have spent so much time on something which serves no benefit and will change nothing and are trying to block the zoo from its plans, which can actually cause long term
Conservation issues and hold ups which could prevent the animals moving to larger new exhibits.
They also go down the VIP route without facts and start trying to use this as a primary finance route, without understanding that their fanciful figures are miles from the truth and don’t operate every day and in many aspects a number of those experiences will be needed to be changed significantly to sit in line with expected legislation changes in the future.
Whilst to say the 80 page document does highlight some interesting facts, it is also mainly too agenda written, full of supposition and does not come across as professional at all.
There is no way Bristol Zoo could stay open as a zoo, and even if it were, it would be a zoo without any animals and the ones they wanted the zoo to
keep would need massive modernisation of exhibits which again costs money the zoo doesn’t have.
