this was one of my favourite exhibits as a child visiting Whipsnade, can see now it is not particularly desirable being very shallow. Guidebook from the time says they held both grey and harbor seals.
Used to love the Seals as well when I was a kid. Actually this is what is now the otter enclosure, the red pandas and squirrel monkeys were next door in the two enclosures at the time.
One seal was definitely called snoopy but if it was the one harbour seal or one grey seal I can’t remember!
Excellent photo. I never knew the otter enclosure once held seals, so thank you for sharing.
Converting pinniped enclosures for otters seems to be a somewhat common thing. Whipsnade’s Eurasian Otters, Colchester’s Smooth-coated and Chester’s Giants. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many more that I do not know of or have forgotten.
thanks for that info, tried to remember and look at guidebook also and the white edging convinced me it was this one when comparing with current snaps. (have edited accompanying description)
It also held Sea Lions before they moved to what was the Dolphin exhibit and I believe young chimpanzees were carried by keepers to the island before that!
Whipsnade held one representative of each species, both female. I believe they may have been rescues.
I think Snoopy may have been the Grey female, and I believe she outlived her Common/Harbour counterpart by some distance.
The enclosure now holds Asian short-clawed otter, and is all the better for it. The pool depth hasn’t changed since the seals were in residence, not very deep at all. In fact the entire enclosure hasn’t changed much other than becoming more vegetated.
As an otter enclosure, I think this is excellent, very well-planted and natural, but its circular design with viewing from all angles has always given it the feeling of a relatively old enclosure. It's nice to have those suspicions confirmed, but the pool is far too shallow for anything bigger than an otter (I doubt the seal can submerge itself much more than in the photo above). Were there ever any more than 2 seals in this enclosure at any one point in time?
