Highlights of the year2011 and plans for 2012

adrian1963

adrian1963

Well-Known Member
Hi All

This is the second time I have written this out as I don’t save all my documents so forgive me if some of the original thread is missing because as you will see it’s quite long.

This year has been a wonderful year for myself species wise (family wise not so good) I have seen many new species from very small reptiles to large mammals but here are a few of my highlights of the year please note not in order.

London Zoo’s reptile house as to be my favourite highlight of the year I was very surprised at what I saw in the collection and how it was displayed was of a very good standard this was closely followed by the Aquarium again many new species I had never seen before I don’t know what I was going to see in these houses as some of the report’s about the place were to say not very good.

A great day was had in the tropical house at Chester Zoo so many free flying bird species and I couldn’t believe how many species of Hornbill were up on the first floor spent hours in this place and the sight of the Philippine Crocodiles was also very enjoyable for myself.

On to Twycross even though I was a little let down by the enclosures in the collection the different species made up for it in a very good way so many new species I had never seen or photographed before unfortunately the Chimp enclosures did leave a bit of a mark on me.

Now for the best surprise of the year Blackpool Zoo how this as progressed over the last couple of years I must admit this is by far the collection to visit if you have someone in a wheel chair with you so wheel chair friendly by far way ahead of any other collection I have visited over the years.

I should know as I took my mother with me on this day out and even she was surprised at easy it was to move around in a wheel chair.

Birmingham Nature Centre as made some interesting changes this year what with the sad loss of Scottish Wildcat, Coatimundi and the exit of the Ocelot 3 good crowd pullers for the centre but they have now brought in a new male Red Panda (soon to be joined by a female), Pied Tamarins, Golden Lion Tamarins, Gray Mouse Lemur, Bearded Emperor Tamarins and Demoiselle Cranes which have made the collection more interesting can’t wait to see more new arrivals next year.

The arrival of Sprout (Orang-utan baby) was the highlight of the year for me at Dudley Zoo even though there were one or two other new arrivals around the zoo it still felt a little empty around the tecton triple pits without the beautiful Sarah to look and admire but things move on a Tamair is such a beautiful Amur Tiger it’s a pity he can’t stay.

Now for the future what with the sad loss in the family in the summer I had to put things into place so as to take care of mother before anything so next year is make up time.

I want to visit the following collection and also visit as many RSPB & WWT reserves as possible (will not include RSPB or WWT in list).

Bristol Zoo
Blackpool Zoo
Chester Zoo
Newquay Zoo
Paignton Zoo
Dudley Zoo
Birmingham Nature Centre
Twycross Zoo
Hagley Falconry Centre
Birdland Park & Gardens
Living Coast
London Zoo
Monkey World
Just one more thing before I go

Hope you all have a great festive holiday and a brilliant new year

Adrian
 
This is a reply I managed to save via e-mail from Tim May

Within the UK, my main highlight for 2011 was definitely seeing the fanaloka at the Rare Species Conservation Centre. Unfortunately only a couple of days later I learned that the RSCC had closed; I hope that there will be opportunities to see this fascinating species again elsewhere.

Another highlight was my first ever visit to Blackbrook. I liked this zoo enormously and definitely intend to return although, as others have mentioned, there is certainly room for improvement with labelling. I trust all its financial problems are successfully resolved and the zoo’s future is assured; I would be very upset if my first visit there was also my last.

Outside the UK, my zoo visiting highlights were my two trips to Germany. In May I went to Cologne, Duisburg, Wuppertal and Dortmund; all zoos that I had visited many times previously, but it was several years since I was last in that part of Germany and return visits were long overdue. On the same trip I also visited ZOOM Erlebniswent for the first time (although I had visited visited the old Ruhr Zoo at Gelsenkirchen many years previously).

In September, I attended the annual Zoo Historica which was held at Leipzig Zoo this year; particular highlights at Leipzig were seeing the eastern quoll and the Chinese pangolin. After leaving Leipzig, I went to Berlin were I visited both the Berlin Zoo and Berlin Tierpark. These are still, without doubt, my two favourite zoos and I never tire of visiting them; returning to these two great zoos was certainly the highlight of my zoo-visiting year.

Next year I plan to attend Zoo Historica again when it will be held in Plzen Zoo; I’m really looking forward to that as it is a zoo I’ve never visited and I hope to take the opportunity to visit various other zoos in the Czech Republic too.
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Well i've managed to fit in 18 collections as well as the Natural History museum at Tring, New collections for me were Wingham, Woburn, Whipsnade and Heythrop. Highlights, Ligers and Polar Bear at Heythrop, The Lynx being fed at New Forest,, Baby Gorilla and Lion Cubs at Bristol and as ever, the Gorillas at Howletts.

Hopes for next year, first visits to Manor House and Folly Farm, Blackbrook, Colchester, Welsh Mountain and Knowsley.
 
Being my first year back being a regular zoo visitor I only managed Welsh Mountain, Chester and Blackpool this year.
Already started planning a northern tour for next year.
Basically starting at the next zoo north of blackpool on the west, working up to Highlands wildlife park and then back down the east. Up to now I've planned;

Lakeland wildlife oasis
South Lakes
Trotters
Galloway
Five Sisters
Highland wp
Edinburgh
Yorkshire wp
Flamingo Land

Then back home to the Wirral maybe stopping at the Chestnut centre on the way home.

I'm open to suggestions of other places I should visit that would be along that basic route. I might actually leave South Lakes out, as Im planning a trip there this coiming Sunday.

I also want to visit Twycross, Dudley, Trentham Monkey Forest, Gentleshaw. could these all be fitted into a weekend maybe?
 
@Waddi Trying to do Twycross,Dudley,Trentham Monkey Forest and Gentleshaw in a 2 day weekend is possible but I wouldn't recommend it,I have done Dudley and Twycross on the same day but it is very much a rush,bare in mind this is coming from somebody that has done 4 collections in a day in the UK without feeling I had rushed any of them!Personnaly if you wanted to do Twycross with another collection I would suggest either Blackbrook or The Tropical Bird Gardens at Desford.Dudley you could do easily with either Birmingham Nature Centre or Birmingham Sealife Centre or in the summer both.As for the other 2 you have listed you could do the 2 together in the same day without any problem in fact if the The Palms at Stapley Water Gardens hadn't closed you could have done the 3 in a day without any problems.
 
Thanks for the reply ZG, Maybe I'll do the midlands collections during the 4 day weekend at the beginning of June then and include West Midlands SP or Woburn SP too, this list is getting bigger, I had forgotten about SP's. I'll have to include Blair Drummond into my tour now aswell lol.
 
Waddi said:
Thanks for the reply ZG, Maybe I'll do the midlands collections during the 4 day weekend at the beginning of June then and include West Midlands SP or Woburn SP too, this list is getting bigger, I had forgotten about SP's. I'll have to include Blair Drummond into my tour now aswell lol.
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I would do West Mids with that lot and do Woburn with Whipsnade on a different trip as those 2 are about 30 minutes apart.
 
adrian1963 said:
. After leaving Leipzig, I went to Berlin were I visited both the Berlin Zoo and Berlin Tierpark. These are still, without doubt, my two favourite zoos and I never tire of visiting them; returning to these two great zoos was certainly the highlight of my zoo-visiting year.

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The Berlin Zoos are also my current favourites and I was at both this year even though I would need to get a bit fitter to properly see the Tierpark as its absolutely exhausting walking for miles lol. The only other Zoos that I got to this year were Dublin, Belfast and the new Tayto park and all of these are worth a visit with Belfast (very hilly though) having the bigger more interesting animal collection and Dublin with better housing and a more modern look and nicer walk. Am hoping to get to Chester before the end of the year as i visit most years.
 
@dublinlion the post was originally done by Tim May I managed to save it from an e-mail copy as the original thread was lost in the change over of the server.

Apart from Blackbrook do any of you know of any good bird collections with something different in them by this I mean that the collecion holds the only ones in the UK as I have a large chunk of time in July and August to fill
Many thanks in advance
Adrian
 
My big event of 2011 was going to the Pacific Northwest and visiting various zoos and aquaria as well as seeing wild bears, eagles, deer, seals and whales. The particular highlight was Woodland Park Zoo, somewhere I had always wanted to visit.

I worry a lot about travel and getting to places so the succesful trip gave my confidence a real boost and in 2012 I'm looking forward to getting to see some of the major European zoos if possible as the only one of these which I have been to is Basel Zoo.
 
My post may be quite long, so please bear with me. :o
My highlihghts are:

- Seeing black caiman at Crocodiles of the World
- Seeing my first clouded leopards at Cotswold Wildlife Park, and then seeing them again at Howletts.
- Seeing several new species at Cotswold Falconry Centre - including African pygmy falcon.
- Holding a king cobra at King Cobra Sanctuary, and also seeing my first adders and the different subspecies of Gila monster.
- My Kent trio, in which I managed to go to Whipsnade, RSCC, Wingham, Port Lympne, Howletts, Wildwood and Marwell. There are too many species highlights to list them all, but a short selection would be the amount of cats (including my first decent view of a Margay).
- Trip to Bristol and their nocturnal house, then onto Slimbridge and ensuring I'd then photographed every flamingo species.
- Baby gorilla at Blackpool Zoo, and seeing coconut crabs and Japanese spider crabs at Blackpool sea life centre.
- Walking around two good bird gardens in swealtering heat, and then going into Tropical World Leeds where it was 45 C.
- Cheetah and tiger cubs at Chester (though have yet to get a good view of the tiger cubs)
- Having my photo taken with a South African fur seal at Rhyl SeaQuarium.
- My annual visit to Welsh Mountain Zoo.
- Ligers and much more at Heythrop
- Many species at Colchester
- Reptile house at London
- FINALLY seeing Toco Toucans at London and Dudley in the same weekend.
- Several of the species at Birmingham Nature Centre.

And on a personal note:
- Increasing my own collection of species.
- Breeding Chinese fire bellied newts.


Hopes for 2012:
- To go abroad and visit some oversees zoos.
- To go to Edinburgh to see pandas and everything else new, the things I missed last time and the things I could just happily see again.
 
It's been my biggest year zoo-wise too. I visited my first zoos outside of Australia and hopefully I'll get to a couple more later this year/early next year when I go to the Europe Mainland for a couple of weeks.
 
Mine was seeing a chimpanzee who lived most of her life in a small cage, with bars instead of a floor ( well it had a floor when they put her in as a baby ) go into a group of chimpanzees and make many friends - the first chimps she'd seen since being taken from her mother as a baby, go outside and climb to the highest heights, try to run along a fireman's hose ( she fell off put managed to hang on and swing the rest of the way ), start to grow hair where she'd pulled it all out when she was alone - amazing spirit and courage from an animal who'd spent many hellish years. Hope she gets many more happy years at Monkey World.


Kiki in Lebanon
 
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OrangePerson said:
Mine was seeing a chimpanzee who lived most of her life in a small cage, with bars instead of a floor ( well it had a floor when they put her in as a baby ) go into a group of chimpanzees and make many friends - the first chimps she'd seen since being taken from her mother as a baby, go outside and climb to the highest heights, try to run along a fireman's hose ( she fell off put managed to hang on and swing the rest of the way ), start to grow hair where she'd pulled it all out when she was alone - amazing spirit and courage from an animal who'd spent many hellish years. Hope she gets many more at Monkey World.
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'Hope she gets many more at Monkey World' - what, hellish years. Now who dislikes chimps :p.

In seriousness though, that is an excellent story OP. Even if chimps aren't my favourite animals in the world, I'm still heartwarmed when they (or indeed any animal) is taken out of such poor conditions and given a much better life. Especially when 'solitary' chimps are integrated into a group as it should be. Thanks for sharing :)
 
@OrangePerson many thanks for sharing a wonderful story here's hoping she has a great life at Monkey World hope to see her next year if all goes well again OrangePerson many thanks for sharing
 
Javan Rhino said:
Especially when 'solitary' chimps are integrated into a group as it should be. :)
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Monkeyworld's work in assembling groups of chimps using mainly desocialised animals is their single biggest achievement I think.

Zoo highlight of 2011 for me has been the birth (27th September) of a 2nd baby Gorilla to Salome at Bristol zoo -hopefully securing her genetic line for the future, though it still appears they don't know its sex yet.
 
Zoo highlights this year for me have included visiting South Yorkshire Wildlife Park for the first time and seeing the rescued lions living in their new spacious enclosures, Penguin Beach at Regent's Park also visiting the new small zoo at Kirkley Hall, Ponteland which I look forward to visiting in the future and following its progress. On the down side, the loss of Sheba, the grand old lady elephant at Chester, little V.J. Ganesh, the baby elephant at Twycross as well as Bongo the old lady gorilla, also Becky and Mkundi the chimps. Also Mercedes the polar bear at the Highland Wildlife Park.
 
TARZAN said:
On the down side, the loss of Sheba, the grand old lady elephant at Chester, little V.J. Ganesh, the baby elephant at Twycross as well as Bongo the old lady gorilla, also Becky and Mkundi the chimps. Also Mercedes the polar bear at the Highland Wildlife Park.
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And for me, Salvador at Chester.

The biggest loss this year though in the zoological world hasn't been an animal, but in fact Luke Yeomans who founded and ran the King Cobra Sanctuary. His passion and dedication for the species was simply amazing.
 
I've had to take some time to think about this one. My personal highlights were the EAZA ape walk and talk at Chester and my 1 to 1 tour of HWP with Doug Richardson. Like Pertinax, I was delighted when Salome gave birth to another baby at Bristol, particularly as I was able to visit the zoo and shoot photos when the baby gorilla was only 2 days old. My other favourite photo opportunity was the bushdog litter at Chester.
My plans for 2012 involve the zoos in south west England, including my first visits to Shaldon, Living Coasts and Newquay.

Alan
 
I vote for Salome and baby too!

The Chester ape events were brilliant.

Seeing the Twycross chimps starting to be moved to, hopefully much better social groups in better enclosures.
 
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