I have been glancing through a copy of the 2013 map of the zoo that I recently obtained, and Drusillas Park certainly specializes in kid-friendly attractions. To go along with the Thomas & Friends train ride and innumerable playgrounds, there is a plethora of small critters for kids to admire. Capuchin monkeys, squirrel monkeys, otters, lemurs, red pandas, meerkats, mongooses, sloths, bats, porcupines, beavers, capybaras, marmosets, tamarins, penguins, raccoons, coatis, small birds and domesticated animals make up almost the entire collection. It seems as if there are zero elephants or large animals of any kind, no hoofstock, no bears, no big cats (servals are as large as it gets) and no great apes. Drusillas seems to have purposefully targeted young families and I would guess that the establishment is packed every summer! Is the zoo worth attending for someone without kids? Are there any rarities hidden away in a corner? What is the most noteworthy exhibit?
It's an odd place, for which I can imagine that sooty mangabey might well be the best commentator. It's one of the oldest surviving UK Collections, dating back to 1923, which means that only London, Bristol and Edinburgh are older.
It has never sought, as far as I know, to possess larger animals. Diana monkeys are its largest primates, Serval and Binturong its biggest carnivores. It has always aimed to be a zoo for children, keeping smaller animals. I suppose none of the exhibits are very much worthy of comment, but as a place to spend a quiet afternoon in the Sussex countryside it has considerable merit.
I work just a couple of miles away from Drusillas, and yet I visit it less frequently than I do many zoos in France and Germany - apart from sometimes popping in for work reasons (students at my school occasionally have sessions there, and we work with them for our animal management course). It is a quite brilliant place, for what it is - but it is not really a zoo designed with the Zoochat visitor in mind. I would think that my ten year-old son would feel it rather beneath him now (but then he has been dragged to nigh on 100 zoos already, so his zoo-going is not typical for a child of his age!). The zoo part is, mainly, kept separate from the play areas and those play areas are of a very innocent type (the Thomas the Tank Engine train is about as wild as it gets). Animal-wise the collection is pretty unremarkable, although it does have species that are very nice to see. It is also remarkable for identifying its species down to precise subspecific level: the lar gibons are Malayan (Hylobates lar lar), only seen at a couple of other European zoos, while the binturong are Arctictis binturong albifrons - there's only one other European zoo with these. There are a lot of coatis, meerkats - that sort of thing. But I would say that most things are presented very well. Best exhibit? I would say the bat house (Rodrigues) - it's not reversed lighting, so you get a good view of the bats, it's quite spacious - and it has an outdoor area. The squirrel monkey enclosure is very good too - nicely designed, with the visitor looking into what has the appearance of being a very open space (it's actually not that big). the Diana monkeys mentioned above are no longer present.
It's pretty professionally run (its record-keeping is superb, for example), and for things like customer-care it is excellent. The corporate look is strong, and there is much that other zoos could learn from it. Locals like it very much, and it is very popular - even though it is by no means cheap to get in (£17 for anyone over the age of 2). Once you are in, too, there is an expert skill there in getting you to open your wallet again and again! For small - and by that, I mean up to the age of 6 or 7, children - excellent. But I would rather visit, say, Cottbus Zoo in eastern Germany any day!
