Dudley Zoological Gardens Dudley Zoo killer Whale

jacks zoo

jacks zoo

Well-Known Member
Does anybody know (or old enough to remember lol!) where the killer whale 'cuddles' was formely kept at Dudley? I heard it was in an area of the castle moat, is that where the sealions and penguins are now?
 
i also believe they had southern elephant seals too, at one point having 8 or 9 of them at one time, and even bred them too, but the pup was not reared successfully though.
 
I remember the killer whale: and I have photos somewhere in my files, I'll try to dig them out in the next few days. I guess it must been in the early seventies, when I visited Dudley from time to time. The pool struck me at the time as being too small, so by today's standards it would seem very small indeed. Although it would still be adequate for smaller creatures.
I can't remember elephant seals though; would they have been in the same pool, but later on?

Alan
 
The whale was at Dudley in 1972, and I have a photo of him at Flamingoland in 1970. I never saw the elephant seals there but I did see them at Flamingoland. They moved sometime in the mid 1970s I think.

I think the enclosure was where the sealions are now, but I'll check the guide book if I can find it.
 
bongorob said:
The whale was at Dudley in 1972,
I think the enclosure was where the sealions are now, but I'll check the guide book if I can find it.
Click to expand...

I saw an Elephant Seal at Flamingo Land but never at Dudley.

From memory, the Sealion enclosure at Dudley is/was originally part of the Dudley castle moat. It was actually a very good sealion enclosure, landscaped rocks with two good stretches of water divided by a small bridge underneath which the sealions could pass. I think the tunnel could be closed, so maybe the Elephant seals had one section of this?

But would it have been ever deep enough for a Killer Whale? Surely not? I don't know where else it could have lived though..
 
Thanks for your replys, would love to see a pic of the killer whale at dudley if anyone has time to upload it to the forum

Best
Jack
 
While you UK guys are on the Killer whale note in the UK, what ever happened to the one they used to have at the Winsor Safrai park, they also had Dolphins there as well, maybe Grant would remember this one?.
 
Winnie the female killer whale went to one of the seaworld parks, the one in Florida i think and the dolphins went to Kolmarden in Sweden when the park closed.
 
I found my 1972 Dudley guide. The whale was kept in the area now used by the sealions.

I also found a book called Dolphins and Whales in captivity which I purchased from Flamingoland in 1976. According to this booklet Flamingoland and Cleethorpes Zoo had exhibited Atlantic Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Common Dolphin, Beluga, Common Porpoise, Atlantic Pilot Whale and Killer Whale.

I've posted the pictures in the Other European Zoos section
 
bongorob said:
I found my 1972 Dudley guide. The whale was kept in the area now used by the sealions.
Click to expand...

Crikey- I should think the poor thing was almost touching the bottom of the pool- I've seen those moat pools empty and they're not that deep..:(
 
Pertinax said:
Crikey- I should think the poor thing was almost touching the bottom of the pool- I've seen those moat pools empty and they're not that deep..:(
Click to expand...
The pool was returned to its original condition upon the depature of the Killer Whale and Dolphins,to keep them they added a series of concrete walls on top of the present enclosure,i have seen photos of the pool with the concrete walls it looks very different to what it is now as their was a large area of banked seating over the area where we now view the Sealions.
 
okay, thanks for the explanation! I couldn't possibly see how a whale could have been kept in the original Sealion exhibit...
 
I have posted two photos from 1973 in the gallery. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to find, scan and process them. Unfortunately neither of them is particularly good :(

[photo=2756;564;CuddlesHead.jpg]Killer whale at Dudley[/photo]

[photo=2757;564;CuddlesJumps.jpg]Killer whale performing at Dudley[/photo]

I've also posted a better shot of a bottle-nosed dolphin performing at Whipsnade in 1977.

Alan
 
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Hi, Cuddles was captured late in 1968 and sent to Flamingo Park Zoo (now flamingoland)
where he (initially thought to be a she) was kept for a few years. Pentland Hick the then owner of the zoo paid $15000 for him and flew him over from Seattle - he was captured by famous whale catchers Griffin and Goldsbury and was a massive hit at FP as the only performing killer whale in europe at the time. (Holland had had one a few months earlier but it died soon after arrival). He lived with 2 BNDs in the current sealion pool ~250,000 gallons.

After the first year he became more and more unreliable to handle, at one point pinning a swimmer underwater and roughing up trainers cleaning the pool etc. Cuddles became severely ill at FP at one point including having several terrible bouts of intestinal bleeding - turning the whole pool red with blood on more than one occasion and then becoming dark grey instead of the normal killer whale black colour as a side effect of loosing the blood. Fortunately he was cured, supposedly by a white which from Devon who told the vet not to worry and the whale would stop bleeding the moment he put the phone down.........that was at 8:30 one morning. While checking back through the log books,the vet found the last time Cuddles was seen to pass blood was 8:31am that same day.........

In the early 70's Pentland Hick sold the zoo out of the blue and Cuddles was moved, against all advice, to a hurriedly adapted dolphin pool at Dudley - slightly over 15m long and 6m wide and 3.5m deep on the left side of the castle bridge. It was totally inadequate for him , even by the standards of zoos in those days. Initially the plan was to build new dolphin and whale pools at Dudley, then to move him to Marineland in France, but in the end Cuddles suspiciously broke a rib in April 1974, the infection overtook him and he died a few days later.

I have several pictures of him at Dudley and FP, I'll dig them out if people are interested?
 
I'm interested! Sounds like really awful conditions they kept him in...
 
The pictures are fine (and they make mine look truly amateur). Thank you for all the information too.

Alan
 
Yeah those are really good! Poor whale, spent most of his life effectivley living in a tea cup lol
 
Killer Whales-Clacton Peir/Cleethorpes

On the subject of Killer Whales in the UK, does anyone have any information or pictures of the animals kept at Cleethorpes, and Clacton Peir? Did anywhere else (apart from windsor) in the UK ever keep Killer Whales?
 
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