Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Jersey priority developments
- Thread starter gentle lemur
- Start date
I can see the thinking but realistically how many 'visitors' are going to make the special journey up to the Zoo from St Helier or wherever but not want to actually go in? I can't imagine it would be very many.
JerseyLotte
Well-Known Member
I can see the thinking but realistically how many 'visitors' are going to make the special journey up to the Zoo from St Helier or wherever but not want to actually go in? I can't imagine it would be very many.
St. Helier is only 15 minutes drive away via good main roads.
You'd be suprised!
In Jersey, the activity of choice on the weekend is a drive/cycle/walk/busride out to somewhere nice to have a bacon roll/coffee/breakfast/light lunch with friends, before going for a coastal walk, to the beach or visiting another attraction. (by "attraction" I mean "Jersey Potteries", "The Shell Garden", "The Hungry Man" at Rozel and anywhere you can see some Jersey cows!!!)
Trinity is a gorgeous part of the island, with very little in the way of facilities or a nice place for a coffee with friends, we're 5 minutes drive from the coast and some of my favourite beaches, 10 minutes from Gorey Castle, less than that from St Catherines Woods (the only sizable woodland on the island!).
I know it probably sounds bizarre to you mainlanders!!! But we don't have Alton towers here, we don't have any shopping malls, we don't have those kinds of things
So people find their entertainment in more quaint ways.You can't solve a flagging tourism industry, but you can find ways to make your local populus happier and encouraged to visit for other reasons.
The right entrance is a critical factor for any successful zoo/wildlife park etc.
Somebody notable once said, you could have one scrappy lion in a corner, so long as the toilets, the cafe and the shop were right people will still come.
You can't underestimate the value of good facilities and presentation (obviously without any compromise to the core purpose)
JerseyLotte
Well-Known Member
While not totally on topic, to illustrate my points about the type of place Jersey is Here's some hilarious videos by a local independent film maker, that's a real Jersey accent and yes, there is some exaggeration about how backwards it is here 
Some slightly (tame) flowery language so probably not worksafe, a good laugh though
*tried to make it not embedded but it just does it!!!*
Here's some hilarious videos by a local independent film maker, that's a real Jersey accent and yes, there is some exaggeration about how backwards it is here Some slightly (tame) flowery language so probably not worksafe, a good laugh though
*tried to make it not embedded but it just does it!!!*
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I think I know what you mean- I have only visited Jersey to go to the Zoo(about 6 times in all) so have never really take into account what else is going on(or not!) on the island for visitors/holidaymakers generally. From what you say I can see better how tourists may easily end up at the zoo entrance area if they were just 'passing by' so to speak.
Very beautiful.Jersey, despite its ongoing financial worries, has made a brave start already. In the last few years it has introduced Red River Hog into the collection, constructed a new Meerkat enclosure (I'm not enamoured of Meerkats myself - you see them ad nauseum almost everywhere you go these days - but nobody can deny their pulling power with the public), and converted the old walled garden into a Madagascar themed area with facilities for many kinds of birds as well as lemurs, Giant Jumping Rats and Narrow-striped Mongoose. The old Livingstone's Fruit Bat enclosure (originally the 1972 Brian Park Gorilla Complex, then used for orangs, before being given over to the bats) has been converted for the Chough breeding programme. So plenty of projects have been completed already. The current project is a new Visitor Centre, incorporating improved retailo space and a new cafe (Cafe Firefly). The cafe (which will not replace the original but be an additional food outlet) will be accessible to both zoo-visitors and non-zoo-visitors alike. Once this is done, there will be a new entrance to the car park (down the driveway that leads to the Les Noyers Traioning Centre). The new Visitor Centre is scheduled to open in April. I believe improvements to the gorilla accomodation are also planned for this year. As long as Jersey can ride out its financial problem, it is looking forward to a very exciting future.
From Gorillas to Choughs... this enclosure has seen quite a few changes in its inhabitants.
The two pairs of Choughs were bred at Paradise Park, Hayle, Cornwall, as part of their on-going 'Operation Chough' project. But since wild Choughs recolonised Cornwall in 2000, Hayle have been prevented by UK conservation bodies, from legally releasing any(more) captive bred Choughs. Whereas Jersey being in the Channel Islands is outside that jurisdiction and so a captive breeding and release scheme is permissable there.
jerseygorilla
Well-Known Member
Do you know when it opens?
