Tut, these zoo queue photographers.........
You're not going to sell any of these photos - nobody's smiling and you haven't got an appropriately zooish backdrop
I've got a couple of maps of the Yorkshire Wildlife Park and while the facility appears to be growing by leaps and bounds isn't it still a very tiny establishment? Why is there such a large crowd to see such a small assortment of animals?
I've got a couple of maps of the Yorkshire Wildlife Park and while the facility appears to be growing by leaps and bounds isn't it still a very tiny establishment? Why is there such a large crowd to see such a small assortment of animals?
a) because there's no other 'proper' zoo for at least 2hrs travel in any direction
b) because it's a sunny bank holiday
c) because it's a very good small zoo
d) perhaps most significantly, because the management are exceptionally canny at marketing and publicity and play the local media better than anyone I've seen
African Lion (13 animals)
Amur Tiger
Meerkat
Yellow Mongoose
African Wild Dog
Raccoon Dog
Brown Lemur
Black-and-White Ruffed Lemur
Ring-tailed Lemur
Ankole and Limousin Cattle
Dwarf Zebu
Various domestic sheep and goats
Addax
Western Sitatunga
Kafue Flats Lechwe
Red Deer
Llama
Guanaco
Bactrian Camel
Red River Hog
Chapman’s Zebra
Domestic horses and donkeys
Giant Rabbit
Red-necked Wallaby
Plus emu and ostrich, flamingos and waterfowl, tortoises and various macaws, snakes and birds of prey for the demonstrations. When the South American walkthrough opens later in the year, it will add mara, capybara and agouti, and potentially squirrel monkeys. For a zoo that started basically from scratch only 2 years ago, they're not doing badly.
@Maguari: thanks for the listing of species, and the park has certainly expanded at an incredible rate during its short lifetime. Raccoon dog, yellow mongoose, brown lemur, lechwe and sitatunga are all extremely rare species in major North American zoos and I'm a little surprised at how what I perceived as a "little park" has exploded with animals.
@Maguari: thanks for the listing of species, and the park has certainly expanded at an incredible rate during its short lifetime. Raccoon dog, yellow mongoose, brown lemur, lechwe and sitatunga are all extremely rare species in major North American zoos and I'm a little surprised at how what I perceived as a "little park" has exploded with animals.
'Exploded' is the word - and because they've made a point of bringing in big animals like the lions, tigers, camels and zebras, it feels like an even bigger expansion than it is.
Intrigued by your list of the rarest species - within the UK Raccoon Dogs and Brown Lemurs are rare but the the other three are reasonably common at the moment - I'd have picked Addax as the most exciting of the three antelope!
That said, Yellow Mongoose were grade-A rarities not that long ago - I remember going to Cotswold WP for the first time (in the 1990s) specifically to see the UK's only Yellow Mongooses. They were kept in the Quarantine building for years - I get the impression they'd settled and started breeding there (in a very basic enclosure, but on view) and they didn't want to risk moving them. Then suddenly some years ago they also 'exploded' and are possibly the second most common mongoose in the UK now.
Kafue Flats Lechwe are another interesting case - quite widespread at the moment but also quite inbred and there are real problems getting unrelated pairings, so these may not be so secure for ever.
Tut, these zoo queue photographers.........
You're not going to sell any of these photos - nobody's smiling and you haven't got an appropriately zooish backdrop
