Visited hamerton today for the first time ever, and i must say i was very impressed. First i’ll get the negatives out of the way, but there’s only 3, There’s a small section next to the raccoons that looked like and old enclosure but is all overgrown and doesn’t look the best. The area where the cranes, vultures and marabou storks are was looking a bit more tired tan the rest of the zoo and could do with some updates. And finally the only negative enclosure wise was the brown hyenas, now it can’t be that bad because they have bred multiple times so must be content, but the main hyena enclosure is very small, with just some bark chipping and a couple of platforms. Obviously i guess there okay with that but i was surprised they didn’t have a bigger space because i couldn’t believe how big the hyena was!
But the positives, there’s so many. The main being the huge variety of rare and unusual species. Wombats, golden possums, syrian bears, brown hyenas, corsac fox, jackal, aardwolf, sumartran civets, the variety of crane species. Just so many rare and unusual animals.
Even though they were in their dens, the were awake however, seeing the wombats was a treat. The most adorable animal i’ve ever seen personally. The syrian bears were also a great, some playing in the large pool and some out exploring in the grasses.
Behind the syrian bears are newer enclosures that have been built for the surplus number of brown hyenas and cheetah that the zoo have. This brown hyena enclosure was much better.
The white bengal tiger is beautiful. I’d never seen a white one before.
The zoo are currently building a large enclosure for japanese snow monkeys which is in between the white tiger and the syrian bears. Also behind the syrian bears they have lots of expansion space, but after reading the guidebook it seems like they really want more expansion and more species but the lack of funding and only receiving money from visitors and donators is what is holding them back.
The only animals i didn’t see were the binturong, striped skunk, ringtail, echidna, and a couple of the possum species.
I was reccomended to visit hamerton and johnson’s of old hurst in the same day but i’m glad i didn’t because we arrived at hamerton at 10.30 and didn’t leave until closing at 5pm. Hamerton is a full day!
Top tip: The zoo was extremely quiet after 4.00pm and in the last hour of the day we did a quick run around to see animals we hadn’t seen the first time. The cassowary, serval, maned wolf, brown hyena, southern aardwolf, grison and bat eared fox were not out earlier in the day but all were clearly visible in the last hour. Stay until the end to see more species definitely.
I could definitely tell tlc projects were ongoing, and i hope that continues around some of the very few tired looking areas. They definitely need another toilet block as the only ones are in the far right hand side of the zoo near the marmosets and lemurs. Some in the grassy area near the farm animals would be a good space for another needed toilet facility.
I will definitely be visiting again soon!