I recently went on a trip to this small zoo, definitely the most local to me (about ten minutes' drive from my house) and figured I would include a brief review and also a species list.
First thing to mention - the site is incredibly small. Walking fairly briskly, you could probably go from one end of the site to the other in a couple of minutes. Even hanging around and trying to see everything, I don't think I was in there for more than an hour. The enclosures are almost all extremely basic and often packed very close together. A couple of displays (the macaw aviary and neighbouring snapping turtle house) are of a better quality, so I hope that the zoo will upgrade its current facilities with time.
The zoo is home almost exclusively to rescue animals, many of which are actually moved from the zoo to a private facility on the Dengie Peninsula at the end of the day. This does mean that a lot of the species on-display are fairly standard, and I can't think of any animals there worth a species hunter going out of their way to see.
One thing that I haven't experienced anywhere else is the friendliness of the staff - it seemed that everyone working there wanted to stop and talk about the place and the animals.
Because of the winding nature of the zoo's pathways, it is difficult to put the species in any sort of order, but this is a full list of everything I can remember seeing. Animals marked with a * are ones I did not see on my visit:
First thing to mention - the site is incredibly small. Walking fairly briskly, you could probably go from one end of the site to the other in a couple of minutes. Even hanging around and trying to see everything, I don't think I was in there for more than an hour. The enclosures are almost all extremely basic and often packed very close together. A couple of displays (the macaw aviary and neighbouring snapping turtle house) are of a better quality, so I hope that the zoo will upgrade its current facilities with time.
The zoo is home almost exclusively to rescue animals, many of which are actually moved from the zoo to a private facility on the Dengie Peninsula at the end of the day. This does mean that a lot of the species on-display are fairly standard, and I can't think of any animals there worth a species hunter going out of their way to see.
One thing that I haven't experienced anywhere else is the friendliness of the staff - it seemed that everyone working there wanted to stop and talk about the place and the animals.
Because of the winding nature of the zoo's pathways, it is difficult to put the species in any sort of order, but this is a full list of everything I can remember seeing. Animals marked with a * are ones I did not see on my visit:
- A species of slider, I think yellow-bellied (signed as a Western pond turtle)
- Green-cheeked conure (in an aviary signed for a golden conure)
- African spurred tortoise
- Banded mongoose
- An aviary for domestic canary, zebra finch, Bengalese finch and diamond dove
- Green-winged macaw
- Common snapping turtle * (in an indoor shelter next to the macaws)
- Guinea pig
- Congo grey parrot
- Senegal parrot
- Eastern rosella
- Rosy-faced lovebird
- Budgerigar
- An aviary for Azara's agouti and more green-cheeked conures
- Rainbow lorikeet
- Leopard tortoise
- Pot-bellied pig
- Domestic donkey
- Emu
- Alpaca and domestic sheep
- Domestic goat
- Domestic rabbit
- Fancy rat (in a mesh outdoor aviary - never seen rats displayed in such a way before)
- Domestic chickens
- Domestic mallards
- Cockatiel
- Western jackdaw
- Common marmoset
- Koi carp
- Barn owl *
- Eclectus parrot
- Striped skunk *
- Slender-tailed meerkat
- Ring-tailed coati
- Common raccoon
- Domestic ferret
- Kinkajou *
- Burmese python (in a tank in the zoo's gift shop)
- Corn snake
- Milk snake
- California kingsnake
- Central bearded dragon
- Rankin dragon
- Frilled lizard
- Argentine black-and-white tegu
- Green iguana and a tortoise (labelled as yellow-footed, resembled spur-thighed)
- Leopard gecko
- Crested gecko
- Oriental fire-bellied toad *
- Cane toad (possibly the highlight - never seen a toad so large before)
- Tiger barb
- Madagascar hissing cockroach
- A species of stick insect
- Brazilian salmon pink tarantula
- Arizona blonde tarantula
- Mexican redknee tarantula
- Imperial scorpion *
- Giant African millipede
