Closed Zoos

joobee said:
Gosh.....Ive NEVER heard of a zoo at St Asaph before reading this thread! (excuse me joining in so late!!) My sister lives very near what is now the Tweedmil shopping outlet....its certainly not common knowledge there was ever a zoo there! the best i could find locally is possibly a travelling collection used to use the site as its base in the winter. I'd love to hear more about this!
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Clinton Keeling wrote a chapter on it in one of his "Where the..." books, and there is a page on it in "The Penguin Guide to British Zoos" (1970). In the latter Geoffrey Schomberg's final sentence reads "The combination of animals and scenery is pleasant, but do not expect to be set on fire by the collection". It did house "Hannibal" the Asiatic Elephant for a while of course - he later was at Flamingo Park, APP did move a lot of things around. He was at Flamingo by 1970 and Geoffrey Schomberg says St Asaph had a "baby Elephant". In the guidebook described by Clin Keeling "Hannibal" was called a "baby", but that would have been a few years earlier (maybe circa 1965 which is the opening date given in the Penguin book, of course it was called Llannerch Deer Park then).
 
I remember the zoo at St Asaph, having been taken there when i was about 12, in th eearly 1970s. They had a very small baby Asian elephant in a pen, which ran after us for attention. It seemed a very lonely, frightened little thing. I remember it had been born on July 13th (or maybe captured on that date), same birthday as myself. It wasn't a very inspiring collection.
 
knie said:
I remember the zoo at St Asaph, having been taken there when i was about 12, in th eearly 1970s. They had a very small baby Asian elephant in a pen, which ran after us for attention. It seemed a very lonely, frightened little thing. I remember it had been born on July 13th (or maybe captured on that date), same birthday as myself. It wasn't a very inspiring collection.
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Did St Asaph Zoo have dolphins? I have being try to track this down for sometime. I recall someone mentioned to me they had seen a guide book for the zoo with a dolphin on the cover. As the zoo was a satellite for Associated Pleasure Parks (APP) it could have been planned but never came to anything. However, there may have been some confusion with a dolphin show at Gwrych Castle which is in the area. This was for one season only and operated by Don Robinson either through his dealings with Scotia Pleasure Parks (formerly APP) or Scarborough Marineland and Zoo.
 
I dont ever remember dolphins at Grwych Castle which i visited very regularly as a kid. they did have a pets corner...goats and rabbits....we used to go there on school trips. There was a dolphinarium in Rhyl on the seafront near the Ocean Beach fairground. Funnily enough, that site was also a jousting arena for a while.....that was what Grwych was well known for.:)
 
joobee said:
I dont ever remember dolphins at Grwych Castle which i visited very regularly as a kid. they did have a pets corner...goats and rabbits....we used to go there on school trips. There was a dolphinarium in Rhyl on the seafront near the Ocean Beach fairground. Funnily enough, that site was also a jousting arena for a while.....that was what Grwych was well known for.:)
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The dolphin (I think there was just one) was at Grwych Castle for one summer as I knew the trainers who worked that season. The pool was by all accounts a very temporary affair.

So perhaps I was right in considering there may have been confusion regarding the two venues.

Indeed, Rhyl did have a dolphinarium which was one of a number owned by Entam the leisure division of Trust House Forte. I have a post card of the pool on my web dolphinaria web site.

Entam Dolphinariums - Rhyl - Knowsley - Woburn
 
Sorry to bump such a old thread, but I remember 2 collections in my area , here in Victoria Australia. The Monbulk Animal Kingdom has been mentioned on here before, but they had lions (the last 2 ended up @ Mansfield Zoo) Tigers, Pumas (1 ended up @ Buxton Zoo) and the beautiful and tame Jaguar that ended her days at Darling Downs Zoo. They also had 2 spider monkeys (1 named Jacko) a Rhesus Macaque and a tame Long tailed Macaque that they 'rescued' from a science laboratory. Dingos, camels (Cleo & Freda) Fallow deer, donkeys, goats, and the usual collection of kangaroos, reptiles and birds rounded out the collection. Most of the enclosures were typical of the time, and very hand made looking, although the property was quite scenic looking. Monbulk closed down in the early 90's I think.
The other 'zoo' I went to was the Buxton Zoo, which was a very small collection with 1 puma (mentioned above) about a dozen macaques (pig tailed, rhesus & 1 long tailed from memory) deer, an eagle, cockies, pheasants and a lot of chooks and Bengal cats! The owners were known for their milking of spiders and making art work from spider webs, and they also wanted to train monkeys for assisting disabled people in their homes! I think they also dabbled in taxidermy. The zoo closed down in the late 90's and the owners continued on at the same site with a tree nursery.
I know there was also another zoo that was near the Melbourne airport that supposedly had big cats incld Jaguar, but I never went there. I would like to know more about any of these places and others in Australia, if people have memories.
 
southern usa. I grewup in Florida during the 1950-60s visiting many roadside zoos and exotic animal attractions now extinct but included in my visited list. The Nashville Zoo originated at the closed Tennessee Game Farm northwest of the city before it moved to grassmere. Zoo Atlanta is at its original location and will expand its property when the Cyclorama civil war museum is relocated. Plans call for expanded africa hoofed stock and elephant exhibits. The new herpetarium is scheduled to open spring 2015. A Lion Country Safari located soouth of Atlanta closed during late 1970s. Also, I remember Chicos Monkey Farm located on ushwy 17 south of Savannah, GA closed.
 
please forgive me if some one alrwady said this as i didn't read the entire thread, but Catskill Game Farm was wonderful. nice enclosures, outsytanding ungulate collection etc... it's a shame it closed down. now a family is making it an RV park with a small petting zoo
 
Astrobird said:
I know there was also another zoo that was near the Melbourne airport that supposedly had big cats incld Jaguar, but I never went there. I would like to know more about any of these places and others in Australia, if people have memories.
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There was a place called Ponderosa Zoo and Fauna Park near Melbourne Airport many years ago (probably 30 years or so since it closed). I don't know what animals they had, but it was quite small. I think it was probably more "small fauna park" than "zoo". Jaguars would have been interesting; the property is close to valuable horse studs, and is over the road from Woodlands Historic Park which is now home to captive-bred Eastern Barred Bandicoots. The property has been a dog boarding kennels for some years.
 
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere on this thread. Galveston used to have an animal theme park called Sea-Arama. Had bottlenose dolphins, sea lions, reptiles, and even orca and big cats. After SeaWorld San Antonio opened, they couldn't compete and closed down.

There are some neat photos of the ruins, but apparently they were torn down in 2006.
 
skippy said:
There was a place called Ponderosa Zoo and Fauna Park near Melbourne Airport many years ago (probably 30 years or so since it closed). I don't know what animals they had, but it was quite small. I think it was probably more "small fauna park" than "zoo". Jaguars would have been interesting; the property is close to valuable horse studs, and is over the road from Woodlands Historic Park which is now home to captive-bred Eastern Barred Bandicoots. The property has been a dog boarding kennels for some years.
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This was at Bulla and a lot of the enclosures were converted chicken sheds with concrete floors. It was run by a very dominant woman and received many animals from Adelaide Zoo. They had an interesting array of species including Binturong and some primate species that are no longer held in this country. She had quite a few Jaguars, including at least one melanistic specimen. Some of the Jaguars went from Ponderosa to Monbulk and one, Kera, finished her days with us.
 
Does anybody knows something about"Ravendsden Zoo"in Rushden ? Was that a Zoo or only an animal dealers facillity ?
 
If you look through Studbooks for many captive species, you will see many references to 'Rushden' as they supplied so many animals to Zoos in the past. I don't when when they ceased operating- I presume they have of course.
 
Pertinax said:
If you look through Studbooks for many captive species, you will see many references to 'Rushden' as they supplied so many animals to Zoos in the past. I don't when when they ceased operating- I presume they have of course.
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I think they ceased to operate c.1999 - 2000 :)
 
I think Ravensden changed to supplying soft toy animals etc. to zoos instead of live ones .
 
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