The Palms Tropical Oasis will close permanently on 5th September 2010. Not a major zoo but always reliably interesting and somewhere I've been going for years. I made my final visit after spending the morning at Hillside. So long, old chum.
The Palms Tropical Oasis will close permanently on 5th September 2010. Not a major zoo but always reliably interesting and somewhere I\'ve been going for years. I made my final visit after spending the morning at Hillside. So long, old chum.
The Palms Tropical Oasis will close permanently on 5th September 2010. Not a major zoo but always reliably interesting and somewhere I\'ve been going for years. I made my final visit after spending the morning at Hillside. So long, old chum.
Plain ecomonics, I'm afraid. I think the short version is, 'they got a good offer for the site'.
It was never spectacular but had some really interesting things - a nice line in inverts and amphibians, for instance. For years it was the only place I'd see White-fronted Amazons and it's still the only place I've seen Screaming Hairy Armadillo.
As Maguari has already said it was pretty much ecomonics,simply put the parent company got into serious financial trouble,and excepted an offer for the land for houses to be built on the site,and then they would relocate to another site and start again with the palms and the garden centre,but in the end it all went wrong and the whole lot had to close!
Correct, They rest were donated to various other zoo's and botanical gardens or sold off to the public in the final weeks.
We payed a final visit in late July 2011 (a week or so before it finally packed up for good) The place was looking pretty sorry for itself. They didn't charge us an admission, the zoo room and most of that side of the building was completly closed off. Minor building works had already started to take place. 95% of the animals had left, as you would have expected by that stage. The only real reason it had stayed open for that final week was to sell off the remaining plants (in a public sale) and to make final arrangements for the re-homing of the animals. It was just a very sad outcome for this place...
