Chester Zoo Best moments at Chester Zoo

Komodo99

Komodo99

Well-Known Member
This thread is to discuss everyone's favourite,unique or funny moments such as spotting a rare species for the first time or your favourite animals being particularly active.

My moments include
Jantan the Komodo dragon approaching the front of the glass from the large rock (where the hut is) all the way to his pool.
Spotting the Jaguars(See Napo twice,Goshi once)
Spotting Kitani and Hazina
Seeing a Tuatara for the first time
Watching the Tigers feeding for the first time(seen during my first ever visit to Chester)

Those are just some of my favourite moments from various visits to Chester.Curious to know what everyone else thinks.
 
"Going in" with the world's most charismatic mammal.

(Better not say when and how)

Second - the Elephant Evenings. Blowing up Maya's trunk, and rubbing Sithami's amazing bristly forehead.
 
Kid asking his mum why the Zebra had 5 legs

Tiger taking a wee and hitting a guy in the face with the splash back off the wall in the old enclosures

Male Asiatic Lion roaring in my face from about 10 feet away- the sound literally shook my body

Male Asiatic Lion high in a tree

Asiatic Lions mating (99/100 I've seen them
Sleeping so ace to see them doing something else)

My 6 month old sons smiling face when hearing the new elephant calves trumpeting in the first minute of his first visit

Watching the current Jags for over an hour- damn the cats are ninjas

The old reptile corridors in the middle of the 80's

Watching the free flight birds for over an hour in the Tropical realm

The three legged Cloudie Leopard? In the small car area late 1970's

Not the best but certainly memorable:

Orang bashing a large terrapin- I did inform a keeper

The Wild dogs fighting- I informed a keeper again but learned the dog later died as a result of injuries
 
Most memorable moment was probably being charged by a black rhino on the walk and talk... Pretty cool but not a pleasant experience!
 
I have only one moment and I don't think I will ever beat it. Visiting the zoo on Sunday 16th July 1978 and wandering into the Pachyderm House and seeing a five day old hybrid elephant calf. Totally unexpected.
 
bongorob said:
I have only one moment and I don't think I will ever beat it. Visiting the zoo on Sunday 16th July 1978 and wandering into the Pachyderm House and seeing a five day old hybrid elephant calf. Totally unexpected.
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I would have like to have seen him too. Hadn't they announced his birth by then?
 
bongorob said:
I don't know Pertinax, if they had then I don't remember it.
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Don't forget that the only way to announce a birth in those days was to issue a press release and invite the media to take an interest: if they didn't bite, people didn't know. And if you missed the broadcast or didn't see the right newspaper or didn't spot the story on the page, you were in the dark. Zoo births didn't make the national papers very often - I suppose they may have been quite frequent in the local papers like the Chester Chronicle, but as I recall, they rarely got as far as the Liverpool Echo. The only Chester Zoo stories that I remember from those days were the dreadful anthrax outbreak in 1964 (which killed four adult elephants) and the pseudo-pregnancy of Noelle, the 'mountain' gorilla in 1969 (which, of course, did not result in Britain's first gorilla birth). In 1978 I was living in Essex when Motty, the hybrid elephant, was born and I don't think I heard a thing about it.
 
gentle lemur said:
The only Chester Zoo stories that I remember from those days were the dreadful anthrax outbreak in 1964 (which killed four adult elephants) and the pseudo-pregnancy of Noelle, the 'mountain' gorilla in 1969 (which, of course, did not result in Britain's first gorilla birth). In 1978 I was living in Essex when Motty, the hybrid elephant, was born and I don't think I heard a thing about it.
Click to expand...

No, I was forgetting that news didn't travel so quickly in those days. I can't remember when I first heard about Motty- some time after his death I guess. I certainly remember the Noelle pseudo-pregnancy though- 24 hour watches- they could 'see the baby moving' etc- red faces all around when sadly nothing came of it.

My 'best moments' at Chester were probably simply the whole of my first visit there- having heard so much about it and then finally seeing the moated Ape islands, the Tropical house and of course my first 'mountain' gorillas too.
 
My best moments at Chester zoo

Meeting the jaguars behind the scenes back in 2015

Hearing someone calling the agouti koalas

Kitani the rhino mock charging me

Being at the zoo the day nandita the elephant was born

Seeing the sloths outside for the 1st time

Watching KT the cheetah playing with her cubs in 2013 by the glass at the cheetah yurt

Having one of the painted dogs jump up at the glass at me

Watching a zebra be born in 2016
 
Mine has to be seeing my first ever Fossa pups the other week, and seeing a baby Elephant less than 24 hours old a few years ago.

My main best moment in general is just visiting the zoo once a year and learning about its history and the family that founded it (which is still ongoing).

I most likely have many other lovely memories from Chester Zoo.
 
I don't think I have a special memory.

Some of the contenders are my first musk-oxen in 1977 and bottle-feeding a two-day old leopard cub in 1991. Jubilee and Motty both at 4 days old.

Others are Giant Coot and Pesquet's Parrot in 1975, Wilson's Bird of Paradise in 1973, a cow anoa nudging her baby out of its resting place and bringing it to the fence for me to look at in the 1990s.

My first memory of the zoo is 1962/63 when I saw a female caracal carrying a kitten in the original cat house which was in front of the stable block.
 
For me, it would probably not interest many people. But as a big birds and reptiles person, some of my highlights have been;

Seeing a pair of Collared Trogon's being hand reared, less than 2 days old, before eyes were open and had any feathers.

Being lucky enough to watch a webcam footage of a Javan Green Magpie hatching, and then the first time it's mother fed it, via the camera at the hatchery with the keepers. More importantly as this was the first time they had, had a hand reared Javan Green Magpie naturally nest and hatch eggs, whilst normally they would all be taken away and hand reared. So in the terms of conservation this was big.

Getting to hand feed a group of 7 hand reared Flamingos and having one of them peck me!

Having a tour of the whole Inverts section with Tamas, and learning about the Vietnamese and Bermudan Snails that Chester has helped save from extinction and getting to see them.

Being able to tong feed the Caiman Lizard Gary, and being able to give him a stroke. He is one chilled fella.

Getting to see and feed, a group of Parson's Chameleons which were no more than a few days old.

Being able to go in the Bat House when it was in white light and help clean and feed all the bats, and getting to see them up close and realise what cute teddy bear faces they had!

But my biggest favourite was getting to see up close a Pronks Day Gecko (Phelsuma pronki), which is the only one held in captivity in Europe, although possibly some in private hands.
 
Here are some more of my favourite moments

Feeding fabi and kirana in the old tiger house

Meeting the elephants behind the scenes

Watching sofia the jaguar catch a pigeon

Watching the tigers playing in the snow on my visit last November
 
On one visit, I heard a group of teenage lads exclaim: "Look! It's a panda!". They were looking at the Malayan tapir. Still makes me smile, albeit in a 'what is the world coming to?' way. :D
 
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