Twycross Zoo Our first visit in several years and our last

daystar12uk said:
I am obviously a little naive expecting people to put the welfare of the animals before their own comforts. Too much of an idealist I think. We visit zoos every weekend as we love watching the animals and taking pictures. For us the welfare of the animals is of paramount importance and we will not support any zoo that doesn't appear to do this. I do understand the need to provide good facilities for the paying public but feel in this instance commerce has been given centre stage. If they had all this money to spend then they should have improved on the existing enclosures before embarking on the aquisition of new species.
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Well I do not think you are being naive putting the welfare of the animals before your own comforts, that is exactly how I feel. Twycross I understand did receive a substantial grant to help pay for the construction of Himalaya, very good, yes I live in the real world and appreciate that a new, state of the art gift shop, cafe etc. will hopefully generate lots of cash which hopefully will go to improve the facilities of the animals living at the zoo. I think I am correct in stating that when Miss Badham and Miss Evans retired they left the zoo in a good, healthy financial state with £13,000,000 in the bank, could some of this not have been used to build a very much needed new home for Jambo, Benjie and co before embarking on a complete refurbishment of Norton Grange and employing a lot more staff to work in it, the new pet's corner is very good but should not a new home have been built first for the chimps?,I understand that £3,000,000 was unfortunately lost when the zoo's investment with Lehman Brothers evaporated to nothing, however,what has happened to all the rest of the money that was carefully and prudently saved by the previous directors?, is there much left? and if so how much?
 
TARZAN said:
Well I do not think you are being naive putting the welfare of the animals before your own comforts, that is exactly how I feel. Twycross I understand did receive a substantial grant to help pay for the construction of Himalaya, very good, yes I live in the real world and appreciate that a new, state of the art gift shop, cafe etc. will hopefully generate lots of cash which hopefully will go to improve the facilities of the animals living at the zoo. I think I am correct in stating that when Miss Badham and Miss Evans retired they left the zoo in a good, healthy financial state with £13,000,000 in the bank, could some of this not have been used to build a very much needed new home for Jambo, Benjie and co before embarking on a complete refurbishment of Norton Grange and employing a lot more staff to work in it, the new pet's corner is very good but should not a new home have been built first for the chimps?,I understand that £3,000,000 was unfortunately lost when the zoo's investment with Lehman Brothers evaporated to nothing, however,what has happened to all the rest of the money that was carefully and prudently saved by the previous directors?, is there much left? and if so how much?
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Biggest waste of money at Twycross (in my opinion) is spending £1 million on building a footpath that really does just look like a dirt track. That money, spent very wisely, could have gone a long way to improving one or two of the zoo's primate enclosures.
 
TARZAN said:
I think I am correct in stating that when Miss Badham and Miss Evans retired they left the zoo in a good, healthy financial state with £13,000,000 in the bank, could some of this not have been used to build a very much needed new home for Jambo, Benjie and co before embarking on a complete refurbishment of Norton Grange and employing a lot more staff to work in it, the new pet's corner is very good but should not a new home have been built first for the chimps?,I understand that £3,000,000 was unfortunately lost when the zoo's investment with Lehman Brothers evaporated to nothing, however,what has happened to all the rest of the money that was carefully and prudently saved by the previous directors?, is there much left? and if so how much?
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Think it used to be alot more than £13 million,will have to try and find my old annual reports,and see if I can find the actual figure.As for the loss when the zoo's US investments went wrong,believe it was more than £3 million they lost when it happened.
Is there much left well look at what has been done recently,and ask yourself does the average zoo visitor care,if the Bornean Log Canoe in the Borneam Long House was shipped all the way from Borneo,which is where I have been told it came from?!
Also worth noting is that until a few years ago Twycross always had their accounts registered with the Charities Comission a good month or so before they were required,to do so but the last couple of years they have been more than a little late,in fact on my last visit to Twycross I asked when the next annual report was due out,and guess what nobody knew!
 
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zoogiraffe said:
Also worth noting is that until a few years ago Twycross always had their accounts registered with the Charities Comission a good month or so before they were required,to do so but the last couple of years they have been more than a little late,in fact on my last visit to Twycross I asked when the next annual report was due out,and guess what nobody knew!
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It's slacker than that. Up to last year the accounts (for the year ended the previous December) were always filed by the end of March (i.e. within three months). This is indicative of a well run organisarion, i.e. if proper books and records are checked and there are no problems or disputes there's no reason a well run organisation would not be able to file within three or four months.

Last year (the year the Chairman, Ivan Ellis, resigned) the accounts were filed at the end of July. This year's accounts (to December 2010) have not yet been filed. The "deadline" for these accounts to be filed is 31st October so the zoo has only got three weeks to avoid a breach (which doesn't cause a charity as many problems from the Commission as you'd expect, but any breach is very poor practice and should be questioned by all those involved with the charity).

Delays are usually, though not always, indicative of a problem of some sort and I'm very interested to know why there's been such a delay and look forward to reviewing them when filed.
 
Yassa said:
Twycross has a lot of flaws and much is needed to bring the zoo to a modern standard, but I am still missing where it has deterriated? Apart from very few improvements, aren`t things pretty much as they were when Molly Badham left/died?
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Surely it's possible for nothing to change but the situation to have deteriorated? Imagine you've got a 30 year old car, it lacks power steering, ABS, airbags, rear-seatbelts, a fifth gear, CD player, air-conditioning. It's not changed but it's hardly up to modern standards and most people wouldn't want to drive it (and that's ignoring the fact that it'll look awful after thirty years of use).

That said, I think the staff at Twycross have, like those at Dudley have been over the last few years, made real efforts recently to make improvements (woodchip substrates, more enclosure furniture) as best they can without expending much money.
 
Shorts said:
Surely it's possible for nothing to change but the situation to have deteriorated? Imagine you've got a 30 year old car, it lacks power steering, ABS, airbags, rear-seatbelts, a fifth gear, CD player, air-conditioning. It's not changed but it's hardly up to modern standards and most people wouldn't want to drive it (and that's ignoring the fact that it'll look awful after thirty years of use).

That said, I think the staff at Twycross have, like those at Dudley have been over the last few years, made real efforts recently to make improvements (woodchip substrates, more enclosure furniture) as best they can without expending much money.
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I totally agree with your comments Shorts, your analogy was brilliant.

We didn't recognise hardly any of the staff on our recent visit but having known past keepers I can only praise them for their dedication to the animals in their care, often under very difficult conditions and it must at times be soul destroying for them.
 
Have checked back as best I can from the Annual reports,that I have in the recent past they used to have assets of over 20 million,while the last current figure I have is around the 13 million stated by Tarzan,as for what was lost in the 2009 Annual report they claim it was 3.5 million.
 
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