Cricket St Thomas Big animals to go

johnstoni said:
Do you know when Warner bought Cricket St. Thomas? I'm not clear who owned it before then, and whether the previous owners were a company involving the Noel Edmonds theme park which owned the place outright, or whether there were long-term owners before this who just invited in business partners to develop the theme park idea alongside the existing wildlife park.
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Early 1990's- or earlier? The original family who owned the estate previously on a longterm basis (and started the wildlife park)- although not necessarily just before the takeover- were called (something like) Taylor- they were the ones who rented the mansion out for filming the 'To the Manor Born' T.V series. One member(Peter Taylor?) wrote a book about the Wildlife Park along the lines of 'Some of my best friends are animals'.

I don't know quite when the Noel Edmunds fiasco of 'Blobbyland' came into being either but it was pretty short lived. Nor who owned the estate then. I think maybe that was before Warners took it over as they are a 'classy' outfit and such commercialism doesn't sound like their sort of thing.

I enjoyed reading your breakdown of the Elephant saga. I am afraid I don't think I ever visited while they were there so I can't add anything, though I have been both before and since (my last visit just a couple of weeks ago).
 
I think that's right, the Taylor Family seemed to own the estate from the mid 1960s, and still appear to, but the House and Wildlife Park, which I think make up a relatively small part of the entire estate, were sold to Warner. I'm actually thinking 1998/1999, as the named changed at that point to 'The Wildlife Park at Cricket St. Thomas'. The collection appeared much smaller from this point on as well, and of course 1999 was the departure of the elephants. I have a feeling I read some IZN reports at the time about the paddock being developed into an Island for Spider monkeys, as well as the lemur exhibit wood opening.
 
1999 would be about right. I visited in July 1998 when it was still a full-blown zoo (and quite a pleasant one at that). When I returned in October 2000 the hotel had been built and the heart of the zoo had been torn out.

The majority of the animals were housed in the walled garden and all but a couple of these enclosures were removed - on such a large estate, it seemed a shame that they decided to build the hotel right on top of the core of the zoo.

The problem ever since has been a distinct lack of animals, and those that are there are strewn over a large area - I think the zoo in its original guise had much more appeal to the casual visitor.

Does anyone know what happened to Cricket's group of Western Black-and-white Colobus (Colobus polykomos)? They were one of the highlights of my first visit.
 
When you say 'group' of King Colobus, how many did you see? There were just 1.1 in 1992, but I think they may have bred.

Was the hotel built in the walled garden? I had always made the assumption that the Manor house itself had been converted into the hotel. The walled garden really was the centre of the zoo, with several cat species (Jaguar, Lynx, Amur leopard, Serval), Western Colobus, Gibbons, Callitrichids, a lemur complex, Parma wallabies, tortoises, a walk-through tropical house with jacanas, enclosures for raccoons and coatis, mongoose, aviaries for touracos, lorikeets, owls and sea eagles, parakeets and pheasants.

Peter Dickinson wrote the following on his blog:
http://zoonewsdigest.blogspot.com/search/label/West Country Wildlife Park
 
Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park

Having been curator of Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park in the dim and distant past I look on the place with some affection. I am not in a position to say "I told you so" because I told no-one but I definitely thought this would happen when Warner moved in.

The Zoo Licence requires that there be some form of contingency plan for just such an eventuality as this so we can rest assured that studbook species co-ordinators are working overtime at best placing the 'surplus' and, as managed species, sale is rarely an option. Cricket will not have a say in where such animals go but will likely have to foot the bill for transport costs. Non managed species may go onto the market but best homes must be found.
 
camel leopard said:
Couldn't some species like the antelope, camel, zebra and horses go to dartmoor, yorkshire wildlife park, trotters etc.
Dartmoor seam to have quite alot of paddock space and so does YWP and both could do with some new species.
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I'm with Camel Leopard on this. It'd be really nice if Cricket St. Thomas dispersed the animals between the smaller parks and zoos like YWP, Dartmoor and Manor House (which has camels and zebra already - anyone know what species these latter are?).
 
I don't understand why Warner are choosing to hang on to the wildlife park rather than sell it as a separate entity if its not generating enough revenue. But then, without the walled garden (and I'm assuming the fur seal pool was either never built or redeveloped) there really only is the valley, as most of the areas with buildings seem to be dedicated to serving the hotel/health spa guests. Which means there little opportunity for a wildlife attraction to be developed with sufficient exhibits which are under cover. The Tropical House, Parrot House/Orangery are obviously no longer open, so apart from the domestic animals barn the park appears to be a bad choice on a wet westcountry day.
 
Peter Dickinson said:
A rough guess...Money. I imagine the dwindling popularity of Mr Blobby suggested to investors it was time to jump.
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I remain ... a realistic sceptic here. Warner Leisure as the name implies are not exactly the best bunch of individuals to manage a wildlife park in a sound and scientific manner.

An investment one says (how cynical), better suggestion is a buy and sell out ...! Without any form of investment over the last few years Warner Leisure one can at least say they have somewhat neglected the wildlife park management side of things.

If Warner Leisure had truly had a vision of how to develop the wildlife park commensurate with the site and its current animal collection, Cricket St. Thomas WP would not face demise today. It would have flourished like up and coming zoos like Colchester or South Lakes have done. Alas, that vision ... may now never come to pass!

I really do feel sorry for the keeping staff who have dedicated their life to the animal collection and the animals still residing in the zoo. I do hope that BIAZA will come down hard onto Warner Leisure and that all managed as well as the unmanaged animal stock be disposed off in a manner befitting good management of a wildlife park. Similarly, I hope that the zoo keeping staff receive due redundancy payment for the years they put in working at Cricket St. Thomas.

It is here that I rest my case, again. :(
 
johnstoni said:
When you say 'group' of King Colobus, how many did you see? There were just 1.1 in 1992, but I think they may have bred.
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Unfortunately I didn't note down numbers, but there was certainly more than two (maybe four or five?). They had moved out of the walled garden by this time and had a reasonable enclosure on the path that runs above the lake.

johnstoni said:
Was the hotel built in the walled garden? I had always made the assumption that the Manor house itself had been converted into the hotel.
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The hotel is massive - the old manor house is incorporated but is dwarfed by the new building - check out this view from google maps (the manor house is the small square building at the bottom left of the complex). The walled garden was where the cross-shaped building now stands.

I will be down that way at the start of October so I shall pop in and see the place one last time before they completely ruin it.
 
thanks for the link, that shows what the park maps don't - now I see what people mean. The hotel complex takes up what could have been considered the heart of the zoo.

One area that doens't look as if it exists anymore is the old elephant yard (the original one) which was destined to become the new fur seal auditorium and pool before the takeover. I don't know whether it ever got built. The amazing thing about that area was that you could enter a cave somewhere south of the orangery, by the statues of the children having a pillowfight, and you'd enter this underground grotto with aquariums embedded in the walls of the tunnel, which eventually led you out into the viewing area at the moat of the old elephant yard. At the same time, there was a totally separate walkway above the enclosure which I think was by a church and some owl aviaries, and near to the outside of the walled garden. I'm not talking about the later elephant enclosure, the perimeter of which can still be seen clearly in the google earth link and has the spider monkey island in the middle of it.
 
johnstoni said:
One area that doens't look as if it exists anymore is the old elephant yard (the original one) which was destined to become the new fur seal auditorium and pool before the takeover. I don't know whether it ever got built.
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The seal pool was built - I saw it in 1998. My only clear memory is of steeply banked seating. It was gone when I returned two years later so must have been very short-lived (and presumably quite expensive).
 
Cricket now closed

I was planning a trip to Cricket next week during half term, before the removal of most of the aniaml collection. I was therefore dissapointed to find out that the park has allready closed with no fixed opening date for next year.

It stated in the paper that the park would close on the 30th October.

Did anyone else get the opportunity to visit before it closed?
 
I went in september, before it was announced about the forthcoming changes. The website says nothing about the large animals going, just that it is having a makeover and the wildlife park will open again next year.
 
I remember when they had elephants, I had a picture taken with one of them! How long ago did they leave?
 
Quite possible. There are Camels, Emus, red Lechwe, Sitatunga, Scimitar horned Oryx, Siatunga, Axis deer, Cheetah, Hunting dog pair(old) Capybara? etc. also Amur Leopard.
 
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