Drive-through zoos

nanoboy

nanoboy

Well-Known Member
Like so many of my other threads, I suspect that I will be greeted by the refrain "there's a thread about that already". :D (PS* I searched, but did not find any.)

Anyway, I just watched a video clip that had file footage of people driving their own cars through animal enclosures, and feeding reindeer and giraffes.

I was wondering, which zoos allow you to drive your own vehicle through animal enclosures?
 
Zoochat is such an interwoven complex web of ideas that there will almost certainly be a thread on any zoo subject you care to name :D

Anyway, do none of the open-range Australian places allow own vehicles? Lion parks of this type used to be relatively common in NZ in the 70s and 80s (all gone now, the last I think being Orana Park which obviously still exists but not as a drive-through). The drive-through reserve idea started in England at Longleat (in the late 60s?) and took off like a rocket. Safari Parks sprung up like weeds all over the UK (often in the grounds of stately manors), Europe and America. Even Japan followed suit. They rather died down a bit in the 90s but there are still a few (relatively speaking) in England and elsewhere.
 
The only two drive-throughs I have been in were the non-AZA accredited Bear Country USA in Rapid City, SD and Disney's Animal Kingdom. Bear Country you could drive your own vehicle through but of course in Disney you can't. I remember after my grandma passed away I found a pamphlet from Lion Country Safari from the 1960s and it looked like an amazing place. I've seen video of it now and it just doesn't seem to have the luster (which I'm sure the tourist guide exaggerated. It seems that when I have researched those parks the ones you find look run-down.
 
No drive thru in Australia?? There is at least one - Dubbo. Or has it changed its policy?

Drive-thru Safari Parks (with own car) that come to my mind in Europe (including England, Chlidonias!:)):

Serengetipark Hodenhagen, Germany
Zoosafari Pombia, Italy
Peaugres, France
Port St. Pere, France

and for USA
Natural Bridge, Texas

and a few more I have not visited and I am not sure, if drive-thru is (still) allowed:

France (Thoiry?), United Kingdom (Whipsnade?, Blair Drummond?, Woburn?, Port Lympne?) and some more in Spain, Scandinavia, USA, Canada, Mexiko, Brasil, Japan and China.
 
nanoboy said:
Like so many of my other threads, I suspect that I will be greeted by the refrain "there's a thread about that already". :D (PS* I searched, but did not find any.)

Anyway, I just watched a video clip that had file footage of people driving their own cars through animal enclosures, and feeding reindeer and giraffes.

I was wondering, which zoos allow you to drive your own vehicle through animal enclosures?
Click to expand...

In the UK, the following have drive-through exhibits:

West Midland Safari Park
Woburn Safari Park
Blair Drummond Safari Park
Knowsley Safari Park
Longleat Safari Park
Highland Wildlife Park
ZSL Whipsnade Zoo

At the safari parks the drive-throughs are the main bulk of the collection, though they all have varying amounts of 'walk-around' as well.

Highland is a more-or-less 50/50 split walk-round and drive-through.

Whipsnade's drive through is through two large paddocks of Asian animals and is technically at an extra charge as you have to pay to take the car into the grounds (though both paddocks can be seen in a restricted way from footpaths or via the miniature railway). The whole of Whipsnade is effectively a drive through as well as there is car access to many of the roads round the zoo and a VERY large number of free-roaming animals (maras, wallabies, muntjac, water deer, peafowl and prairie marmots).

Port Lympne's 'drive-though' is only via the park's own vehicles. If it ever comes off, I think Bristol's new zoo was planned to have a small drive through on the way into the car park.
 
If you take any from Maguari's list above and put them in Google Maps on Satellite view, then you will see what they look like, albeit as close as Google can zoom in, but you will be able to see the general idea of what they are about. You may also be able to spot some animals on some of them too, even the cars driving round so you can see the route and direction taken.
 
zoomaniac said:
"drive-thru" or "drive-through" - what is correct? (I'm still learning English...)
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'Drive-through' is the correct spelling, but 'thru' is sometimes used just as an abbreviation. I try to avoid it myself (being a natural pedant! :D ).
 
Either term is technically correct, but I greatly prefer "drive-through" because "drive-thru" is a vulgar abbreviation (a bit like text-speak or writing "XMAS" when one means Christmas) and does nothing to enhance the English language.
It has often been said that Longleat (which started as The Lions of Longleat in 1966, before adding other animals - generally African in origin - to the mix) was the first drive-round animal reserve. This is incorrect. It was the first drive-through animal reserve OUTSIDE Africa. When Longleat proved to be exceedingly popular with the public, it was widely prophesized that safari parks would soon replace conventional zoos. This inaccurate forecast had one very big, but often overlooked, positive effect: zoo managements, scared that their visitors would desert them in favour of the new safari parks that were opening up all over the place, were forced to rebuild to give their own animals much more space in order to compete with the safari parks, and the terrible, heavily-barred, cell-like cages of the sixties began to disappear. Now that visitors had experienced seeing big animals in wide open spaces, the genie was out of the bottle, and small cages in zoos were seen as unacceptable.
In zoological circles, the founding father of the safari park, Jimmy Chipperfield, is regarded as something of a pariah, because he was essentially a businessman who was seen as exploiting animals for commercial purposes. But I hold a different view: it was, in no small part, because of him and the safari park concept that he was responsible for, that zoos suddenly reinvented themselves. Ultimately, the dire forecast that zoos had had their day was about as accurate as predictions that the world would end in 1999. In the UK the safari park trend was very short, peaking in the early 1970s. Several have long since closed down, including Windsor Safari park, Lambton Lion Park, Stapleford Lion Reserve, and Loch Lomond Bear Park. Excluding the Highland Wildlife Park, which has a drive-round component, and the drive-through reserve at Whipsnade, the youngest extant safari park in the UK (West Midland) is now nearly 40 years old. Even Blair Drummond, whilst still a safari park, is starting to drift away from the concept, by having more of its exhibits viewable by visitors on foot.
 
Two that I went to this past summer are Six Flags Wild Safari in New Jersey and Virginia Safari Park in Virginia.
 
zooman64 said:
It has often been said that Longleat (which started as The Lions of Longleat in 1966, before adding other animals - generally African in origin - to the mix) was the first drive-round animal reserve. This is incorrect. It was the first drive-through animal reserve OUTSIDE Africa.
Click to expand...
what were these drive-through animal parks in Africa? If you are referring to national parks or animal preserves (i.e. wild animals) that is a world away from Longleat!
 
Maguari said:
In the UK, the following have drive-through exhibits:

West Midland Safari Park
Woburn Safari Park
Blair Drummond Safari Park
Knowsley Safari Park
Longleat Safari Park
Highland Wildlife Park
ZSL Whipsnade Zoo

At the safari parks the drive-throughs are the main bulk of the collection, though they all have varying amounts of 'walk-around' as well.

Highland is a more-or-less 50/50 split walk-round and drive-through.

Whipsnade's drive through is through two large paddocks of Asian animals and is technically at an extra charge as you have to pay to take the car into the grounds (though both paddocks can be seen in a restricted way from footpaths or via the miniature railway). The whole of Whipsnade is effectively a drive through as well as there is car access to many of the roads round the zoo and a VERY large number of free-roaming animals (maras, wallabies, muntjac, water deer, peafowl and prairie marmots).

Port Lympne's 'drive-though' is only via the park's own vehicles. If it ever comes off, I think Bristol's new zoo was planned to have a small drive through on the way into the car park.
Click to expand...

Whipsnade also runs a bus service going round the park, which personally I'd like to see expanded as quite a bit of the park is now given over to car parking.

Cotswold has a road through to the car park that takes you past paddocks with Scimitar-horned Oryx on one side and Llama on the other.

Colchester, for reasons that are beyond me, chose to site their car park right at the back of the zoo, so that until recently a visitor's first view of the place was of some extremely ugly and antiquated service buildings. These have now thankfully been hidden from view by high fences!
 
Almost every european country still has drive-through safari parc. I can add:
Poland - Safari Świerkocin (rather poor)
Czech Rep. - Zoo Dvur Kralove ( since last summer)
Belgium - Monde Sauvage Aywaille-Deigne
Nederlands - Safari Beekse Bergen
Italy - Parco Natura Viva Bussolengo and Safari Fasano
 
I've always wanted to see more of those around. As was mentioned, the concept seems to be fading away. I always thought it would be interesting to see one in a colder part of the country that exhibited animals suited for a cold environment in order to be open year-round. It seems that a good concept would be a 50/50 mix of drive-through and walk-through areas.
 
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