A closed animal park

P

Paul Scott

Member
Just thought this might be of some interest to you.
Windsor Safari Park was closed down in 1992 but a website has been developed sharing memories of it and there are some good articles on the forums to see the site go to www.windsorsafaripark.org.uk .
Another one is www.glasgowzoo.org . Although closed they have kept the website running "for interest".
 
Glasgow zoo

As Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland , and is a fairly sizable city , why did the zoo close ?
 
Hmmmmm

To be honest I think they were working way above their means for some time.
A lot of the exhibits needed fairly substantial modifications and renovation. Added to this that the zoo wasn't quite in Glasgow itself and that the local council owned the site, I think that they just decided enough was enough. I heard somewhere that in the last two years the income received was only about 10% over the expenditure in the same timeframe.
Happily all the animals were rehoused in UK zoos and a significant number went to Edinburgh
 
Does anyone on the forum have any information about a safari park that was open near the town of Chester-le-street, i guess it must have closed about 20-25 years ago.
 
according to my copy of "Animals on View" by Anthony Smith (1977) that would be the Lambton Pleasure Park which also included the Lambton Lion Park. 200 acres. Opened as Lambton Lion Park in 1972 and became the Lambton Pleasure Park in 1975. Had lions (obviously); "a vast paddock containing zebras, giraffes and camels"; Asian elephants; a big mixed paddock with donkeys, ostriches, a single zebra incompatible with the other zebra, white rhinos and crowned cranes; and various other safari park regulars. Also an adjacent amusement area with airplanes, Lambton Castle, adventure playground, caravan park, etc etc.
 
Paul Scott said:
To be honest I think they were working way above their means for some time.
A lot of the exhibits needed fairly substantial modifications and renovation.
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I visited Glasgow zoo once a few years before its closure. It was in a very run down state- easily the worst conditions I've ever seen in any UK zoo- dilapitated cages, broken and rusting fencing, totally bare or muddy paddocks, neglected and dirty aviaries in bird house etc etc.

The actual setting wasn't unnattractive though it was hidden behind a suburban area on the fringes of the City. The tiny car park next to a pub wasn't designed to take more than about thirty cars... but I still don't know why it wasn't better patronised(and therefore more viable) like Edinburgh's excellent zoo..
 
Pertinax nailed it on the head, as Glasgow Zoo was notorious for being a dirty, horrible establishment. I'm sure that the majority of problems were linked to low attendance figures and poor funding. It is great to see substandard zoos close and allow the animals to possibly thrive elsewhere.
 
I had a very similar experience at Glasgow about a year before it closed. It was a 'ghost zoo'. They still had some nice animals and well designed enclosures (like the Himalayan bears) - but not very many of either, and very very few visitors. We moan about other zoo visitors in some of these threads, but being almost the only visitor in a zoo with quite a few empty enclosures was quite depressing.

Alan
 
The saga of Glasgow Zoo is really about council neglect of its Zoological Society within its municipal boundaries. Back in the early 1980's the Glasgow Zoo was a well maintained park with an imaginative and well care for animal collection.

The lack of municipal backing and funding led to its eventual downfall. If the Glasgow Zoo had been around in the last decade in would now be on a similar standing as Edinburgh Zoo.

And the municipal managers at Edinburgh should THINK twice before letting current zoo management down in its masterplanning for the zoo and Highland Wildlife Park, if it is not to go the same way as Glasgow Zoo and its ZS did earlier. :mad:
 
gentle lemur said:
I had a very similar experience at Glasgow about a year before it closed. It was a 'ghost zoo'. They still had some nice animals and well designed enclosures (like the Himalayan bears) - but not very many of either, and very very few visitors. We moan about other zoo visitors in some of these threads, but being almost the only visitor in a zoo with quite a few empty enclosures was quite depressing.

Alan
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Yes, it was the only time ever that I've actually been shocked by poor conditions in a UK zoo. The irony is that the Director- whose name I forget(McGregor?) and who died just a couple of years ago, was obviously a highly educated and motivated zoo person from the reports he wrote and posted on the Internet. Knowing that, I was all the more shocked at conditions in the zoo. Somehow his bouyant enthusiasm for zoological subjects managed to overlook the appalling conditions he oversaw.
 
Pertinax said:
The irony is that the Director- whose name I forget(McGregor?) and who died just a couple of years ago, was obviously a highly educated and motivated zoo person from the reports he wrote and posted on the Internet.

The former director of the Glasgow zoo was the late Richard O'Grady, an enthusiastic man, who tried his damned hardest to hold back the tide at the zoo, but it was all too much for him. Sadly missed.

The zoo i visited a few years before its closure was certainly not the finest zoo, collection or housing wise, but being a half glass full kind of person i will give you a few of my highlights.

Asiatic black bear enclosure, the finest bear enclosure ever in the UK, end off.

Gila monster, first Europen breeding of these wonderful lizards.

Axis deer paddock, not the most interesting species to us zoophiles, but housed in a group in a beautiful small glen at the entrance to the zoo.

Ocelot enclosure, with a lot of imagination a horrible polar bear enclosure transformed into an excellent open air enclosure for the ocelot.

White rhino house and paddock, not the largest paddock in the world, but looked really good with a good sized house too.

Tropical house, scene of the famoused Gila monster breeding but also home to many Australasian pythons, beaded lizards and many other unusual reptiles, with a paddock adjoining for giant tortoise too.

Maned wolf, personal highlight for me first maned wolf i ever saw in a standard paddock, great animals.

Other animals i thought were well housed were the cheetah, tree porcupine, camels and llamas and the small cats.

A place with such potential with many more acres at their disposal, in a truly excellent setting, with a river running through it, wooded areas, and hills, but i think in just the wrong part of Glasgow, in the east end away from the tourist areas of the city.

I do think there should be some sort of animal collection in the great city of Glasgow be it a zoo, wildlife park, bird park or aquarium (lots of redevelopment going on on the riverside an excellent spot for an aquarium in my humble opinion)
There was talk coming from the RZSS of an indoor jungle/tropical rainforest attraction, again in the east end of the city by the Clyde, but has gone all quiet on the subject.
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kiang said:
Pertinax said:
The irony is that the Director- whose name I forget(McGregor?) and who died just a couple of years ago, was obviously a highly educated and motivated zoo person from the reports he wrote and posted on the Internet.

The former director of the Glasgow zoo was the late Richard O'Grady, an enthusiastic man, who tried his damned hardest to hold back the tide at the zoo, but it was all too much for him. Sadly missed.

The zoo i visited a few years before its closure was certainly not the finest zoo, collection or housing wise, but being a half glass full kind of person i will give you a few of my highlights.

Asiatic black bear enclosure, the finest bear enclosure ever in the UK, end off.

Gila monster, first Europen breeding of these wonderful lizards.

Axis deer paddock, not the most interesting species to us zoophiles, but housed in a group in a beautiful small glen at the entrance to the zoo.

Ocelot enclosure, with a lot of imagination a horrible polar bear enclosure transformed into an excellent open air enclosure for the ocelot.

White rhino house and paddock, not the largest paddock in the world, but looked really good with a good sized house too.

Tropical house, scene of the famoused Gila monster breeding but also home to many Australasian pythons, beaded lizards and many other unusual reptiles, with a paddock adjoining for giant tortoise too.

Maned wolf, personal highlight for me first maned wolf i ever saw in a standard paddock, great animals.

Other animals i thought were well housed were the cheetah, tree porcupine, camels and llamas and the small cats.

A place with such potential with many more acres at their disposal, in a truly excellent setting, with a river running through it, wooded areas, and hills, but i think in just the wrong part of Glasgow, in the east end away from the tourist areas of the city.

I do think there should be some sort of animal collection in the great city of Glasgow be it a zoo, wildlife park, bird park or aquarium (lots of redevelopment going on on the riverside an excellent spot for an aquarium in my humble opinion)
There was talk coming from the RZSS of an indoor jungle/tropical rainforest attraction, again in the east end of the city by the Clyde, but has gone all quiet on the subject.
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Here, here...cheers for the support and for the comments on the zoo. Richard was a man who tried, but like his co-management lacked any real business acumen and lacked any real ideas, also had a forever looking in committee. Being the very last person to leave the zoo, it is sadly missed, even more so when our curator Lutz passed away from a brain tumour some 12 months after the closure....
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was incharge of the bears and big cats, rhino etc at glasgow..if you need info or as to why the zoo closed then email me. I wrote an article for the Glasgow Evening times about the decline of the zoo, many folk came up to me and shook my hand however, apart from the lack of funds, poor management, and politcal jollying, and the crass disrespect from the anti zoo loby and even the locals stole and broke into the zoo...then the zoo was doomed from the start....
Regards...
 
It always struck me as an enormous shame that the zoo didn't ever 'take off'. The site was great (location not so good); Glasgow is a place with a marked identity and sense of local pride; lots of wealthy people in the city - or from the city - to support it.

Despite some of the comments above from people who never visted the zoo, it wasn't a horrible establishemnt, and as Kiang says it did have much to commend it. It also had a lot that was awful though, and much of what was good was allowed to fade away. unfortunately, the management really was poor: on the last occasion I visted the zoo, Mr O'Grady attempted to physically thow me out the gate. What a guy!

I have no doubt at all that Edinburgh's accelerated development in recent years has been in part due to Glasgow's closure - not that Glasgow ever had that many visitors. It could, quite easily, have been a good zoo. It did have good parts. Its not being in existence any longer is a loss to zoos, and to Scotland.
 
sooty mangabey said:
It always struck me as an enormous shame that the zoo didn't ever 'take off'. The site was great (location not so good); Glasgow is a place with a marked identity and sense of local pride; lots of wealthy people in the city - or from the city - to support it.

Despite some of the comments above from people who never visted the zoo, it wasn't a horrible establishemnt, and as Kiang says it did have much to commend it. It also had a lot that was awful though, and much of what was good was allowed to fade away. unfortunately, the management really was poor: on the last occasion I visted the zoo, Mr O'Grady attempted to physically thow me out the gate. What a guy!

I have no doubt at all that Edinburgh's accelerated development in recent years has been in part due to Glasgow's closure - not that Glasgow ever had that many visitors. It could, quite easily, have been a good zoo. It did have good parts. Its not being in existence any longer is a loss to zoos, and to Scotland.
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Although Glasgow Zoo was sighted on a very able, luch and potentially viable area within the far reach of the east end of Glasgow..the sight, nothing really wrong with it, but it was the location. East end of Glasgow holds no real grab for any tourist, the lack of wealth both in commerce and population...in reality, the east end was seen as the forgotton part of Glasgow. Yes...in its hey day Glasgow did have a huge sense of pride however the wealth within the area was never there...why should and why would the snobs of the west end help keep afloat something that is very partisane, very "them and us" attitude..

The zoo was not as messed up as some or many zoos and kid-on zoos. The buildings were mostly WW2 aquisitions, bought on the cheap and at the time seen as very enterprising. However, the committee over the years never reinvested and updated. Over the years the committee never changed, some held the same seats for decades. During the mid 1980's and upto the year 2000 the keepering staff, including myself, some of us made sure our voices were heard and we tried to highlight the lack of proper management and thinking. We were always mooted by the committee, who sat had their tea and biscuits, and never elected anyone in...afterall this was their wee kleek...a wee inner world that only they could control.

Again another person here seems to guess that we at Glasgow Zoo did not get enough visitors... Hog-wash ! In its hey day from 1977 to 1987 it was getting in between 270,000 to 350,000 visitors...from 1997 to 2001 we were getting 175,000 visitors...and when the press anounced that the zoo was closing we ended up with from 100 to 500 visitors per week..
Edinburgh Zoo has always had its fill of visitors..that will never change however, Glasgow Zoo had its own types and fill...and Edinburgh has never really stated in what ways it has ever , if any, from Glasgow Zoos demise.

Finaly...it is a sad fact. That Glasgow is the only major city within the UK and Western Europe that does not have a city zoo within its boundry...:(
 
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