Best small Zoo in UK Who and why plus one improvement

G

garyjp

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
So there is no confusion Best & small Zoo.
We will define the above as a 2-3 hour casual walk round and purely a personal opinion.
Right as Ive started this I'll kick off
Broxbourne (Paradise Wildlife Park)
From where they have come worse zoo in britain to now a good 2-3 hours wandering round the animals but you can spend longer playgrounds, trains, paddling pool etc. great introduction to animals especially young children and families, good value for money.Animals are there that people want to see Lions Tigers Penguins Zebra etc,
What I would like to see there - a couple more species of primate old world monkeys in particular.
 
I enjoyed my visit to Newquay Zoo. It has an interesting collection of species, including white-tailed gnu, Owston's palm civet, fossa and crowned lemur. It also had a maze and had a display about how it was affected by the war. I've just checked Zootierliste and it seems that it still has a quirky collection.

I don't know if this would reduce the visitor numbers, but I think the lion enclosure is too small and that the lions could be sent elsewhere, so the space could be occupied by a smaller animal.
 
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In terms of the range and quality of a collection and its exhibits, when balanced against the size of the site, I think one would be hard-pushed to find better "small zoos" than Shaldon and Living Coasts Both cover only an acre or two and contain a high number of taxonomic treasures, whilst maintaining excellent enclosure standards. However, the latter collection in particular may be a little too specialist for the purposes of this question, so I will focus on discussing the former.

Within the one or two acres of Shaldon, the following rarities can be found:

African Brush-tailed Porcupine (Atherurus africanus)
Bengal Slow Loris (Nycticebus bengalensis)
Black-tailed Marmoset (Mico melanurus)
Common Cusimanse (Crossarchus obscurus)
Dusky Lory (Pseudeos fuscata)
Long-nosed Potoroo (Potorous tridactylus)
Northern Dry-zone Slender Loris (Loris lydekkerianus nordicus)
Owston's Civet (Chrotogale owstoni)
Pied Tamarin (Saguinus bicolor)
Sumatran Prevost's Squirrel (Callosciurus prevostii rafflesi)
Swinhoe's Striped Squirrel (Tamiops swinhoei)
Yucatan Margay (Leopardus wiedii yucatanicus)

My only real suggestion for a potential improvement is impossible, as there is nowhere to expand into, but I wish that the site were a little larger so that it had scope to increase the collection further :)
 
Shaldon?

Having been a regular visitor to Shaldon over the past 25 years or so, I would add my vote for that establishment. In the time that I have been visiting it has been expanded twice and always to a high standard, despite the limited space. However, after visiting RSCC in Kent for the first time last year I would find it difficult to choose between the two. Both are excellent.
Improvement I would suggest for Shaldon is to improve and expand the reptile collection.
 
Lakeland Wildlife Oasis

For a small zoo that involves a couple of hours leisurely stroll - some interesting exhibits and a top class cafe (with immense home made cakes) you can't go wrong visiting Lakeland Wildlife Oasis - the staff are fantastic, friendly and dedicated.
The exhibits are well designed and of a decent size considering the obvious financial and area constraints with any small collection.

I've been seriously impressed with them and look forward to watching them develop in the future.

Worst - I wouldn't like to say really as I try to find something positive in every place and think labelling a collection that might be struggling but trying hard could be a real dent in their confidence and stop them trying?
In all honesty I have not recently visited a collection and thought - jeez this place should close - I have however wanted the management to change in order to improve things in a couple of UK establishments - but that is for a different thread :)
 
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Exmoor for me. Why? It's amount of zoo rarities. One improvement? Stop charging a small fortune for a cup of hot water with a tea bag in it.
 
karoocheetah said:
Worst - I wouldn't like to say really as I try to find something positive in every place and think labelling a collection that might be struggling but trying hard could be a real dent in their confidence and stop them trying?
In all honesty I have not recently visited a collection and thought - jeez this place should close - I have however wanted the management to change in order to improve things in a couple of UK establishments - but that is for a different thread :)
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Sorry for taking this thread off track, but even though i hated Whipsnade and at the time probably stated i wouldn't return, i think i may one day. The only collection i would never return to without doubt would be The Living Rainforest.
 
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Johnny Morris. said:
Sorry for taking this thread off track, but even though i hated Whipsnade and at the time probably stated i wouldn't return, i think i may one day. The only collection i would never return to without doubt would be The Living Rainforest.
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Sorry for taking this even further off topic but I have to ask... why?

I made my third ever visit yesterday, and I don't see how it is bad at all. I understand that it is a very small place and you wouldn't want to go much out of your way for it, but if you were in the area and had nothing else to do, why would you "never return to it without doubt"? :confused:
 
I went a few years ago paid around £20 for me and the mrs and wasn't there for more than 15 minutes. There was nothing (Animal wise) of interest. to be honest i'd have felt short changed being charged £2.50.
 
For me it is banham zoo.:D

This place has big cats, giraffes, penguins, lots of primates and soon will arrive sea lions. There are a few food outlets and a play area for children as well as a free road train and sky trek which is a separate attraction.

For the improvement i would say either a bear or ape species would make the zoo even better. I would also say that they could have a bigger reptile collection.:)
 
Johnny Morris. said:
I went a few years ago paid around £20 for me and the mrs and wasn't there for more than 15 minutes. There was nothing (Animal wise) of interest. to be honest i'd have felt short changed being charged £2.50.
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Fair enough, my ticket was around £8 and I would agree that it is quite expensive (though to be honest, I don't pay for my own entrance tickets). However, it is an annual ticket that you get for that price and I spent about an hour there so I don't feel too short changed.
 
banham.tiger said:
For me it is banham zoo.:D

This place has big cats, giraffes, penguins, lots of primates and soon will arrive sea lions.
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For me Banham has always bordered between small and medium-sized. Sizewise its on a par with places like Twycross and Jersey( the site is reminiscent of Twycross) and I think nowadays with a wide variety including Giraffe and Siberian tigers it has grown a lot from its small beginnings. There was talk of them getting Gorillas at one stage but nothing happened.
 
I thought Banham was a brilliant zoo when I visited ask in April, I would personally class it as a medium sized zoo rather than small so I will share my ideas on the prefix that I haven't visited Shaldon and I'm sure if I did it would win but ....

Best small zoo would have to be Hammerton, even though some of the enclosures aren't as inspiring as other zoos and rather home made, the sheer amount of raritys means that it was my place to go for something unusual before RSCC was built.

Many other good small zoos/aquariums are Beale park, the British wildlife centre, the deep, RSCC, brent lodge nature centre, trentham monkey forest, Birmingham sealife centre.
 
Yes Im going to have to discount Banham as i agree comes in the meduim size catergory so all Banham voters please feel free to vote again
 
I agree, Banham is not a small zoo, probably Paradise WP is borderline too. For it's size, RSCC has to be the best for me, for all its rarities alone, it puts many larger zoos to shame ( no need to name them, I've said enough elsewhere). A good addition might be the return of malayan tapir, if they could add more space to exhibit them better.
Other good 'small' zoos would be Hamerton & Wingham. I haven't been to Exmoor, but I'm sure that would rate equally highly with me.
 
FunkyGibbon said:
Does everyone count Bristol as medium sized? I have always thought of it as the best small zoo.
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I discounted it as a small zoo because of it's number of species and the time it would take to leisurely stroll around it, taking in everything, you could easily spend more than the 2-3 hours set out as a stipulation in the original post. But for it's size, pound for pound in my opinion it is the best zoo in the country.
 
I suppose technically being 12 acres generally would say yes but its a no im afraid due to number of species age etc definately punching above its weight. I suppose what im really after its lower divisions
 
If banham is out then perhaps manor house wildlife park?

This place does not have many species but has beautiful parks and gardens.
And not to mention the arrival of tigers soon!!!

For the improvement probably a new species such as chimp would be a great improvement :)
 
banham.tiger said:
If banham is out then perhaps manor house wildlife park?

This place does not have many species but has beautiful parks and gardens.
And not to mention the arrival of tigers soon!!!

For the improvement probably a new species such as chimp would be a great improvement :)
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Nope Manor House used to be a good small collection then the new owners ripped it to pieces,and went all we should not keep any animal if it has to be in a cage!!

A far better small collection is the near by Folly Farm!
 
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