John Tuson's book, The Zoos of Great Britain and Ireland (2022), is a magnificent publication and I truly love it. HOWEVER, the inclusion of South Lakes as one of the 51 'best' zoos in the UK/Ireland is head-scratching. Anywhere that has emus, rheas and lemurs together is a bit dodgy.
@snowleopard I completely see the potential questions around the inclusion of South Lakes in the book, but I feel that it is justified. The current management has made several improvements to much of the zoo, and there is a lot of construction work still going on to further improve it. The scars of the David Gill years are cut deep into the zoo with exhibits like this, but I feel like South Lakes is (finally) moving in the right direction.
