South Lakes Wild Animal Park South Lakes discussion thread

My heart goes out to all the families and staff and colleagues of the two Zoo Keepers killed by Sumatran Tigers in Zoo's this week. On Wednesday a Keeper of 20 years experience was killed inside the enclosure at Wroclaw Zoo in Poland and today a female Keeper was killed also inside the enclosure at Hamilton Zoo , New Zealand run by the local Council.
Tragic accidents in all areas of life happen sadly, our deepest condolenses to all involved.
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Again, Dave Gill is being on the charm offensive by posting on his FB page (but not on the South Lakes page). It is one thing being genuine and openly giving your sadness. However, if this was so, then it is very false given that he went out of his way both on his FB page and within the media blaming his own staff member for her own death, then retracting and manipulating his statement that was heard in court. Dave Gill has many faces and many lives he hides behind, somehow his comments regarding the recent deaths of keepers elsewhere are very fractious.
 
Seriously, I am in no way supporting DG and most on here do know what kind of individual we are dealing with when his name props up. Where this becomes more or less obsolete is when you post every other day along the same lines. Yes, we all know by now ...!

I suggest you start a thread in its own right if and when there are issues and / or reasons to discuss and have meaningful discourse on matters raised. If you do not this whole thread becomes a complete turn off for the rest of us to even bother to read.

Let us keep it a bit more above the waterline for now please!
 
For very close to 20 years we have been feeding our Tigers up poles to re create the natural mechanisms of hunting and power of grip... Studies have proven we have the fittest tigers in zoos anywhere... Our staff have done this for the benefit of the animals every single day of the year for 20 years... in fact we estimate over 70,000 times in that time at least !! That adds up to climbing Everest from sea level about 16 times !! Wow !!
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What a load of mince...
 
bantam said:
As for big cat,s so called slanderous allegations, nothing he has said is untrue,i know this as i live locally and know how Gill reacts to situations he does not agree with.
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'Bunkum' such as potential camel trip ups and playing the same smeary record over and over zzzz.
So you know everything because you live locally lol.;
 
dublinlion said:
So you know everything because you live locally lol.;
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All in all, I'd find the opinion of someone like bantam, who lives locally and potentially visits the collection regularly, rather more reliable than the opinion of:

a) someone who seldom posts anywhere other than the SLWAP threads, and seldom posts anything which is not copied from Facebook, and as a result drowns out those genuine issues highlighted.

or

b) someone who has not visited the collection in question and says they have a neutral point-of-view on the collection, but of their last 125 posts has posted on the matter of SLWAP a total of 58 times.

In other words, stop the handbags you two :p we all know that bigcat needs to stop reposting from Facebook so much - myself and other moderators have picked him up on this repeatedly - but equally, your conviction that any criticism of SLWAP and of David Gill is "slanderous bunkum" does you no credit.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
All in all, I'd find the opinion of someone like bantam, who lives locally and potentially visits the collection regularly, rather more reliable than the opinion of:

a) someone who seldom posts anywhere other than the SLWAP threads, and seldom posts anything which is not copied from Facebook, and as a result drowns out those genuine issues highlighted.

or

b) someone who has not visited the collection in question and says they have a neutral point-of-view on the collection, but of their last 125 posts has posted on the matter of SLWAP a total of 58 times.

In other words, stop the handbags you two :p we all know that bigcat needs to stop reposting from Facebook so much - myself and other moderators have picked him up on this repeatedly - but equally, your conviction that any criticism of SLWAP and of David Gill is "slanderous bunkum" does you no credit.
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Fair comment and agreeable from TLD. As for the most recent reason for my "mince" comment was highlighting the fact that South Lakes/Dave Gill has been well informed that he has nothing whatsoever to claim about regarding the tiger feed poles and has no such research on how his big cats are the fittest and Gill's guesstimate of 70,000 is fantasy. And as for my other comment regarding Gill's FB page is again just pointing out that the man is living a false ideal and many swallow hook line and sinker regarding his ego hype claims. As for the elephants arriving, though this has been highlighted within Gill's "i want this and that to happen memo", the likelihood of him getting elephants are slim. On that matter I close my comment. ;)
 
I think we should change the title of this thread to "moan about gill page".

There are some equally dubious zoos in the UK yet this is all I ever read on this thread... It's tiresome.
 
Out of curiosity, which collections would you rank as being equally dubious - or indeed moreso? You can send me a PM if you don't want to get into the matter here :)
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Out of curiosity, which collections would you rank as being equally dubious - or indeed moreso? You can send me a PM if you don't want to get into the matter here :)
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i actually think this would be a good topic to discuss as im really bored of south lakes bla bla bla bla etc etc
 
censorship

I only joined this web site recently but find the CENSORSHIP by the moderators ASTOUNDING if this was done by news media then there would be an outcry. a lot of information around safari zoo is factually correct yet you still censor articles under the guise of legality you need to read the north western evening mail face book page to get an understanding of the local fealing about david gill whose latest move is to give the zoo to himself,form a charity and deprive the local area of much needed taxes
 
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bantam said:
I only joined this web site recently but find the CENSORSHIP by the moderators ASTOUNDING if this was done by news media then there would be an outcry. a lot of information around safari zoo is factually correct yet you still censor articles under the guise of legality you need to read the north western evening mail face book page to get an understanding of the local fealing about david gill whose latest move is to give the zoo to himself,form a charity and deprive the local area of much needed taxes
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Take it from me, we are VERY well aware of what Gill is unfortunately like, and none of us are fans of the man - in point of fact, quite a few of us were among his most vocal critics on here before we became moderators and therefore had to start being more careful.

The problem is that even if a statement is factually correct, if someone is wealthy enough they can accuse the individual or website publishing this statement of libel or slander, and win despite the veracity of the statement. Case in point, Liberace :p
 
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bantam said:
david gill whose latest move is to give the zoo to himself,form a charity and deprive the local area of much needed taxes
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For the record:

1. How can he gives something he already owns to himself?

2. What taxes will the zoo being a charity deprive the local area of? VAT, PAYE/national insurance re employees and corporation tax all go to central government, not local government. Admittedly there might be some rates lost but I can't imagine it would be that substantial in the big scale of things.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
The problem is that even if a statement is factually correct, if someone is wealthy enough they can accuse the individual or website publishing this statement of libel or slander, and win despite the veracity of the statement. Case in point, Liberace :p
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Indeed, and the news media generally have time, experience and money to deal with these matters -ZooChat doesn't and (not unreasonably) has to play things a little safer.
 
bantam said:
thanks for that TLD,local council in same position with gill threatening to sue
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The Council does at least have the advantage that it (almost certainly) has legal staff on its payroll!

The mods on here have to be careful; a solicitors letter claiming libel is not to be taken lightly.

I've received two!

(Not zoo related)
 
bantam said:
I only joined this web site recently but find the CENSORSHIP by the moderators ASTOUNDING if this was done by news media then there would be an outcry. a lot of information around safari zoo is factually correct yet you still censor articles under the guise of legality you need to read the north western evening mail face book page to get an understanding of the local fealing about david gill whose latest move is to give the zoo to himself,form a charity and deprive the local area of much needed taxes
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actually members get granted a lot of leeway in the interpretation of the rules of the site. Really the only topic which moderators feel the need to keep a heavy hand upon is South Lakes and that is due to the actions of a very few members. The moderators' actions are to try and keep the topic accessible to all members of the forum (i.e. to make sure that other members don't feel the need to avoid South Lakes news threads because of all the crap in them) and to keep it free of potentially defamatory comments. The former reason is why I try to move all non-news items to this thread - so members can choose to avoid this sort of stuff but still read the news items.

Generally speaking, on all forums the members who consistently complain about moderators' actions are those members who need to be most commonly moderated. Overall, very few members ever get their posts moderated.

A forum does not grant anyone some sort of "right" to post anything they want. The owner of a forum is legally responsible for the content of the postings. If defamatory postings are made and not dealt with, the webmaster is held legally responsible not the individual who posted them.
 
Can't say I am surprised......

We have been overwhelmed by the love and support that is out there for the zoo and what we bring to individuals and the community as a whole. The result of the 20+ thousand signatures on private petitions has led to a round table meeting between the Management of the Zoo and the Chief Executive of Barrow Borough Council.
In response to this very positive and constructive move and as a show of good faith the Zoo management has agreed to open throughout the negotiations.
Our major winter construction and maintenance programme is now underway and a number of areas of the zoo will be not available and disabled access will be restricted until the works are completed and because of this we have decided to open our gates for FREE in January 2016. Yes EVERYONE enters for FREE.
Very soon the zoo itself shall become a Charity and we need your support in every way possible to promote and expand our conservation breeding programmes in the Zoo and with our top class partners within EAZA and more importantly to expand our direct action projects all over the globe with critically endangered wildlife and habitats.
So please show your support in the best way you always do, come visit and drop some money in the buckets; have lunch; a coffee; feed the animals... take a ride on the trains or just wander around over 1000 animals! 10am to 4.30pm EVERYDAY.
Karen
On behalf of the Management Team.
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