Inspired by Snowleopard's Epic Trip, I've decided to do a detailed review of Whipsnade from my visit today.
Visit duration: 7 hours
It's been nearly 2 years since my last visit and back then I wasn't really able to fully understand and appreciate Whipsnade, so I wanted to go back and have a proper look at the park. We paid the £17 extra to take the car into the park and it helps especially for such a long visit.
In my opinion, Whipsnade is split into roughly 3 areas - Entrance, Asia & Africa. Throughout the zoo free-ranging animals move from enclosure to enclosure and throughout the woods. These are chinese water deer, muntjac, bennett's wallabies, mara and peafowl.
Entrance
The first exhibit visitors see as they enter the park is the excellent 'In with the Lemurs'. Opened in 2007, a walk-through exhibit was developed from an already existing lemur island (which had been devoted to Gerald Durrell). Visitors enter the island and watch the ring-tail lemurs climbing ropes, crossing fences in front of them and relaxing by a small pond. Volunteers are on hand throughout the day to ensure people stick to the rules in the walk-through and whilst i was there, even small children showed a respectful attitude whilst inside. The Lemur enclosure is in the shadow of Whipsnade's old Lubetkin designed Elephant House, thankfully nothing lives inside here at the moment, but there are signs up saying that plans are being thought of for it.
Next up is the Chimpanzee Island. It is a decent, quite heavily planted enclosure although there could be more climbing frames. The indoor area is decent and provides some climbing opportunities and the floor is covered in bark for foraging. The original chimp enclosure still stands, although it doesn't appeat that chimps still use it (it appears to be based on the old primate enclosures in the Sobell Pavillions at London).
Two more refreshingly good enclosures in the area are 'Wolf Wood' and the Brown Bear exhibit. Both exhibits devote large areas of heavily planted land for these animals (the wolves even have their own corner of woodland). In my opinion, it is the best bear enclosure in the UK and the Wolf enclosure easily compares to those at Longleat and WMSP.
Other enclosures in the area are a reindeer pen, a wisent paddock, a paddock for white wallabies and storks, bison hill and the penguin pools. All of these are spacious and the penguin pool is perfectly located on the edge of the dunstable downs with the freezing wind blowing.
The zoo's tropical house is located near the entrance, named the Discovery Centre. Visitors enter the house into the desert section, featuring creepie crawlies such as the red-kneed tarantula, fish, reptiles and my favourite in this section, the dwarf mongoose group (as well as some other mammals). Visitors continue to the underwater world, where a host of fish, reptiles and amphibians are kept (including a bizarre snake-naked turtle). The next section is called the forest floor and keeps invertabrates, reptiles and amphibians. Visitors then progress further, where they can see Dwarf Crocodiles, Leaf-Cutter Ants, Geoffrey's Marmosets, Saki Monkeys, Pirannha, Iguanas and other forest creatures.
I will also include in this section, the short-clawed otters, red pandas and sealions. The otters and pandas have fairly standard, but large enclosures that are nothing special for two species which are seen in a number of collections. One of the few disappointing enclosures in the zoo is for the sealions. They have quite basic pools and the whole sealion complex is looking very tired with paint flaking and the white exterior becoming dirty.
Also in the section is a spacious Children's Farm (with grass fields for the animals!), a woodland bird walk and the bird garden. However, owing to time constraints, I was unable to see these parts.
Asian Section Review coming up in the next post.
Visit duration: 7 hours
It's been nearly 2 years since my last visit and back then I wasn't really able to fully understand and appreciate Whipsnade, so I wanted to go back and have a proper look at the park. We paid the £17 extra to take the car into the park and it helps especially for such a long visit.
In my opinion, Whipsnade is split into roughly 3 areas - Entrance, Asia & Africa. Throughout the zoo free-ranging animals move from enclosure to enclosure and throughout the woods. These are chinese water deer, muntjac, bennett's wallabies, mara and peafowl.
Entrance
The first exhibit visitors see as they enter the park is the excellent 'In with the Lemurs'. Opened in 2007, a walk-through exhibit was developed from an already existing lemur island (which had been devoted to Gerald Durrell). Visitors enter the island and watch the ring-tail lemurs climbing ropes, crossing fences in front of them and relaxing by a small pond. Volunteers are on hand throughout the day to ensure people stick to the rules in the walk-through and whilst i was there, even small children showed a respectful attitude whilst inside. The Lemur enclosure is in the shadow of Whipsnade's old Lubetkin designed Elephant House, thankfully nothing lives inside here at the moment, but there are signs up saying that plans are being thought of for it.
Next up is the Chimpanzee Island. It is a decent, quite heavily planted enclosure although there could be more climbing frames. The indoor area is decent and provides some climbing opportunities and the floor is covered in bark for foraging. The original chimp enclosure still stands, although it doesn't appeat that chimps still use it (it appears to be based on the old primate enclosures in the Sobell Pavillions at London).
Two more refreshingly good enclosures in the area are 'Wolf Wood' and the Brown Bear exhibit. Both exhibits devote large areas of heavily planted land for these animals (the wolves even have their own corner of woodland). In my opinion, it is the best bear enclosure in the UK and the Wolf enclosure easily compares to those at Longleat and WMSP.
Other enclosures in the area are a reindeer pen, a wisent paddock, a paddock for white wallabies and storks, bison hill and the penguin pools. All of these are spacious and the penguin pool is perfectly located on the edge of the dunstable downs with the freezing wind blowing.
The zoo's tropical house is located near the entrance, named the Discovery Centre. Visitors enter the house into the desert section, featuring creepie crawlies such as the red-kneed tarantula, fish, reptiles and my favourite in this section, the dwarf mongoose group (as well as some other mammals). Visitors continue to the underwater world, where a host of fish, reptiles and amphibians are kept (including a bizarre snake-naked turtle). The next section is called the forest floor and keeps invertabrates, reptiles and amphibians. Visitors then progress further, where they can see Dwarf Crocodiles, Leaf-Cutter Ants, Geoffrey's Marmosets, Saki Monkeys, Pirannha, Iguanas and other forest creatures.
I will also include in this section, the short-clawed otters, red pandas and sealions. The otters and pandas have fairly standard, but large enclosures that are nothing special for two species which are seen in a number of collections. One of the few disappointing enclosures in the zoo is for the sealions. They have quite basic pools and the whole sealion complex is looking very tired with paint flaking and the white exterior becoming dirty.
Also in the section is a spacious Children's Farm (with grass fields for the animals!), a woodland bird walk and the bird garden. However, owing to time constraints, I was unable to see these parts.
Asian Section Review coming up in the next post.
