Marwell Wildlife Marwell Zoo news 2025

Good news about the male roan antelope.

zooboy said:
In the giraffe house? I assume in the area where face painting has been done in recent months, which had been unfortunate for many visitors because it restricted viewing of the excellent evolution graphics, and blocked-off some viewing into the giraffe hardstand through the windows. It will be interesting to see how many people are willing to pay an extra £6 for an 11 minute VR having just paid to enter the Zoo where the prime intention must be on experiencing real animals. .
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They were setting the VR experience up on Saturday. It is where the evolution displays are.

I presume if lots of places are adding VR experiences at about the same time, that another zoo has tried it and it was a success. Either that or the VR company has a very good salesman.
 
While I personally have no interest in the VR, I have to say that the VR experience at Chester was packed on the weekend in April when we went.

And a shame Marwell is contributing to the climate catastrophe at seemingly every turn, with axing the bus and using AI to generate their images.
 
I echo NMM's comments on the male Roan Antelope, they are one of my favourites!

Interestingly a similar discussion about VR is going on in the paignton thread, I think they are seemingly very popular.

Whilst I also echo comments on the negative impacts of Artificial Intelligence, I'm not sure it's entirely Marwell's fault the bus service was axed/they had logical reasons to do so.
 
HelloCrossy67 said:
I echo NMM's comments on the male Roan Antelope, they are one of my favourites!

Interestingly a similar discussion about VR is going on in the paignton thread, I think they are seemingly very popular.

Whilst I also echo comments on the negative impacts of Artificial Intelligence, I'm not sure it's entirely Marwell's fault the bus service was axed/they had logical reasons to do so.
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I had not appreciated, until quite recently, the mind-boggling quantities of electricity and water that are consumed by AI generation - more than that otherwise used by most individual countries in the world. No doubt science will (and will have to) find future ways to reduce this consumption but until that happens zoos - that should be (and many are) campaigning on environmental issues - ought to avoid any AI generated services unless absolutely impractical to do so.
 
Joker22Hero said:
While I personally have no interest in the VR, I have to say that the VR experience at Chester was packed on the weekend in April when we went.

And a shame Marwell is contributing to the climate catastrophe at seemingly every turn, with axing the bus and using AI to generate their images.
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zooboy said:
I had not appreciated, until quite recently, the mind-boggling quantities of electricity and water that are consumed by AI generation - more than that otherwise used by most individual countries in the world. No doubt science will (and will have to) find future ways to reduce this consumption but until that happens zoos - that should be (and many are) campaigning on environmental issues - ought to avoid any AI generated services unless absolutely impractical to do so.
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It's understandable to be disappointed about the bus subsidy being withdrawn, but it's worth recognising that difficult decisions like these come down to difficult financial trade-offs. Due to Marwell's location, public transport was always going to be difficult to maintain. I think framing this as a deliberate choice to support climate change is extremely disingenuous and incredibly unfair on Marwell.

As for the use of AI generated images, although not a fan myself, I think it's a comical to, again, call this a deliberate choice by Marwell to support climate change, and calls to boycott it completely is a bit ridiculous. The carbon footprint of generating a few images is small, especially when you compare it to similar everyday activities such as eating meat, which Marwell serve at their catering outlets. In fact, the internet as a whole consumes vast amounts of energy and water, even before the invention of AI, and I don't see anybody calling out organisations for having a web presence. If we want to stretch this argument to its logical conclusion, we should all delete our zoochat accounts now!
 
I am planning to go to Marwell Zoo on Saturday. I will try to sneak in Stable Yard and see what's there (what enclosures there were, what do they look like and what animals are there currently).
 
Where do you mean by the stable yard? Do you mean the courtyard area at the far end of the zoo that used to hold farmyard species (called Encounter Village at the time)? It hasn't done so for some time.

That area is the new Native Species exhibit that opened earlier this year holding white clawed crayfish and sand lizards. One of the other buildings is now a reptile house called Cold Blooded Corner. The paddock area next to the buildings is now a wallaby walkthrough and a walkthrough aviary. There is also another exhibit in the area for potoroo and swift parrots.
 
Cat-Man said:
It's understandable to be disappointed about the bus subsidy being withdrawn, but it's worth recognising that difficult decisions like these come down to difficult financial trade-offs. Due to Marwell's location, public transport was always going to be difficult to maintain. I think framing this as a deliberate choice to support climate change is extremely disingenuous and incredibly unfair on Marwell.

As for the use of AI generated images, although not a fan myself, I think it's a comical to, again, call this a deliberate choice by Marwell to support climate change, and calls to boycott it completely is a bit ridiculous. The carbon footprint of generating a few images is small, especially when you compare it to similar everyday activities such as eating meat, which Marwell serve at their catering outlets. In fact, the internet as a whole consumes vast amounts of energy and water, even before the invention of AI, and I don't see anybody calling out organisations for having a web presence. If we want to stretch this argument to its logical conclusion, we should all delete our zoochat accounts now!
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The environmental issue is more complex.

We need to properly sort out the public transport system. Zoos putting on their own bus services is only tinkering around the edges. We need a proper hub based public transport system to make it viable for journeys that require multiple connections.

It isn't really AI on its own that require large amounts of power and water, but datacentres in general. It is something that has only been picked up on by the general media lately and piggybacked as a story onto AI. But then the online world makes some physical journeys redundant, online shopping, video conferencing, etc. I have read that reducing journeys due to online activities has a positive effect on the environment, even factoring in the additional demands on datacentres to support it. It is a complex issue that needs to be looked at as a whole, not focus on one thing, which has the risk of unintended consequences elsewhere.
 
NMM said:
Where do you mean by the stable yard? Do you mean the courtyard area at the far end of the zoo that used to hold farmyard species (called Encounter Village at the time)? It hasn't done so for some time.

That area is the new Native Species exhibit that opened earlier this year holding white clawed crayfish and sand lizards. One of the other buildings is now a reptile house called Cold Blooded Corner. The paddock area next to the buildings is now a wallaby walkthrough and a walkthrough aviary. There is also another exhibit in the area for potoroo and swift parrots.
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The Stable yard is where the old tropical house is, it was used in the early days at Marwell to hold species coming in and out, that was before the tropical house was built, there are still some animal holding areas behind the tropical house today.
 
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dillotest0 said:
marwell.org.uk/explore/virtual-reality-experience
Marwell has now put up a page about the VR in the giraffe house.
The headsets do several 'stagings' of a particular show daily - and the show changes every few months. Three shows are currently listed, and all seem to take place during 'peak season' - i.e. the summer holidays and the winter holidays - though this means that presumably there is a time during October when the VR isn't available.

I will say the page has some AI images on it. I don't like them very much either... but at this point I have seen enough AI images everywhere that I just try not to care too much about it. Though I wish they had gone for something else obviously.

As far goes my opinions on a VR attraction in a zoo... it's not my cup of iced tea but it is a thing several major zoos are doing or have done. I recall Chester had some sort of VR thing for a time, not sure if they still do. I think now Read's strategy of more money making ventures in the zoo is becoming apparent to me... I hope this money will be spent on things that will enhance the zoo experience as the Native Species Zone has!
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It feels rather like desperation when you cant come up with something better, and admitting that the real thing isn't interesting enough.
Surely the point of living animals and a ZOO, is that the reality is 'really real' and not just 'virtually real'.
 
ZooNews2024 said:
It feels rather like desperation when you cant come up with something better, and admitting that the real thing isn't interesting enough.
Surely the point of living animals and a ZOO, is that the reality is 'really real' and not just 'virtually real'.
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People have been saying this ever since zoos started having non animal attractions. I don’t care for it but if it keeps the punters happy and brings in the dough it’s fine by me.
 
AdamT said:
I am planning to go to Marwell Zoo on Saturday. I will try to sneak in Stable Yard and see what's there (what enclosures there were, what do they look like and what animals are there currently).
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Blimey! How many years since you last visited?

The stable yard was long gone last time I went and that was pre-Covid....
 
AdamT said:
I am planning to go to Marwell Zoo on Saturday. I will try to sneak in Stable Yard and see what's there (what enclosures there were, what do they look like and what animals are there currently).
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I strongly recommend that you don't ("try to sneak in the stable yard", not "go....on Saturday") as it is a works area, off limits to visitors and, anyway, closed-off by automatic gates. There are a few remaining cage structures in there which had been used in the past for holding and quarantine, but much of the Stable Yard, as mentioned in the early Marwell guidebooks, was removed decades ago with the creation of the original tropical house.
 
I was watching the Facebook live about the Extinction summer event… at some point they got to the South Road where one can see the picnic area and semi aquatic mammal house. And from what I saw with the ‘empty’ side of the S.R. it looked like the fencing had been removed entirely? Can anyone confirm or deny?
This might have interesting implications.
 
I found the video and they have tidied the area up. I didn't notice on Saturday as I wasn't paying attention to that side.

Not quite sure what the implications you are thinking of. I don't think it means they are about to bring that area back into use. Even if they don't, it no longer has that run down look, which is a positive.
 
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