Galloway Wildlife Conservation Park (Closed) Galloway to close down

TeaLovingDave

TeaLovingDave

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15+ year member
I liked the place rather more than a lot of other Zoochatters did, but given how close to closure it has come in the past, and how far from the beaten track the collection is, I am not entirely surprised that it came to this.....

Galloway Wildlife Conservation Park is sorry to announce that it will be opening its doors to the public for the last time on Sunday, 10 September 2017. After offering visitors the chance to enjoy seeing their animals in beautiful surroundings for more than 15 years, the owners have taken the difficult decision to cease operations for personal reasons.
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The full statement is at the following link:

Galloway Wildlife Conservation Park
 
Something of a shame, but not at all surprising. When I visited a few weeks ago it had seemingly stagnated for rather too long (my parents said little had changed since our last visit in 2010, I can't remember much). There was a little construction going on, but some of the signs about future construction seem to have been there for quite a while ( Signage - 8 August 2017 | ZooChat ); much more work needed to be done, such as removing some of the overgrown vegetation. There was also very few animals remaining, I only saw 31 species with a couple more signed. It was a nice place to spend an afternoon, but I don't think this is a major, or even relatively minor, loss for the UK zoo scene.
 
Just for the sake of keeping ZTL as accurate as possible, would you be able to list those species you *did* see along with those which were still signposted?
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Just for the sake of keeping ZTL as accurate as possible, would you be able to list those species you *did* see along with those which were still signposted?
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I will do at some point (I had intended to update ZTL but completely forgot :rolleyes:), some of the species signed I have doubts over whether they are still there, and I suspect they still a have a few reptile species off-show, but I only saw Royal Python.
 
Below are the species seen when I visited on the 8th August. Those in italics were signed but not seen.

Asian Short-clawed Otter
Azara's Agouti
Southern Pudu
Meerkat
Patagonian Mara
Yellow Mongoose
(Indochinese?) Leopard Cat
Ferret
Domestic Guinea Pig
Scottish Wildcat
Capybara
Brazilian Tapir
Eurasian Lynx
Lowland Anoa
North American Porcupine
Serval
Cotton-top Tamarin
Amur Leopard Cat
Collared Peccary
Corsac Fox
Guanaco
Red-necked Wallaby
Parma Wallaby
Red Panda
Back-and-white Ruffed Lemur
Ring-tailed Lemur

Indian Peafowl
Helmeted Guineafowl
Blue-and-yellow Macaw
Great Grey Owl
Indian Sarus Crane
Snowy Owl
Laughing Kookaburra
Mikado Pheasant
Golden Pheasant
Emu

Royal Python
 
From the park's Facebook page:

"Sadly, the trio of our endangered cotton top tamarins were stolen from their enclosure in the evening of late last week. The trio of cotton top tamarins consist of 1 male and 2 females.

We reported the incident to the police on Friday morning concerning the missing tamarins and Police Scotland have appealed for information about the theft.

These are animals that require specialist diets and care. They will simply die unless they're returned; there's no benefit to anybody not having them with us.

This has been a difficult time for us and we sincerely appreciate all of the support we have received locally. We will endeavour to respond to all of your queries and messages throughout the day.

We advise members of the public that if you come across the monkeys do not attempt to handle them and to contact us or Police Scotland in the first instance."
 
Chlidonias said:
So did this place close or not? (The thread was started in 2017)
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It did - but the oldest animals and those which couldn't be rehomed remained onsite and the collection is being managed as a private "sanctuary" of sorts until they die off - this is why the Youtube videos are now credited to the "Galloway Wildlife Conservation Trust" rather than Galloway Wildlife Conservation Park.
 
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