Colchester Zoo Relative fame/quality of Colchester Zoo compared to other UK collections

cerperal said:
That does raise an interesting question perhaps for the general thread - what are the 3 best known zoos in the UK?
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The three best known zoos is pretty easy in my opinion - London, Chester, Edinburgh. It's the question which inevitably follows of the three best zoos that you will never get close to a consensus on :p

ZooAtHome said:
Another contender for 2nd place would be Edinburgh, maybe? but I have not been there in 15 years.
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I reckon it was a shoo-in for silver medal 15 years ago, but now.... it'd struggle to get close to the top ten sadly.
 
TNT said:
And your top 10 would be? I'd still say Edinburgh scrapes a place imo.
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Changes based on how I feel on any given day, but here goes in no particular order (with the obvious caveat that I haven't visited any collections in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex or Northern Ireland and therefore potential contenders there will be omitted; I'm also omitting extremely-specialised or size-limited collections such as Crocodiles of the World, Scottish Owl Centre, and Shaldon.

Chester
Cotswold Wildlife Park
Highland Wildlife Park
Whipsnade
Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Exmoor
Newquay
Paignton
Hamerton
London

Collections which float around the upper levels of the top 15 depending on my mood (and sometimes enter the top ten) would include Colchester, Howletts, Birmingham Nature Centre, Marwell and Wild Place. At any rate, I think Edinburgh is somewhere around 14th or 15th place at this precise moment of being asked :P although I must admit it has climbed a little in the last few years, thanks to the new giraffe house and a reduction in the sheer number of meerkat exhibits.
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Changes based on how I feel on any given day, but here goes in no particular order (with the obvious caveat that I haven't visited any collections in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex or Northern Ireland and therefore potential contenders there will be omitted; I'm also omitting extremely-specialised or size-limited collections such as Crocodiles of the World, Scottish Owl Centre, and Shaldon.

Chester
Cotswold Wildlife Park
Highland Wildlife Park
Whipsnade
Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Exmoor
Newquay
Paignton
Hamerton
London

Collections which float around the upper levels of the top 15 depending on my mood (and sometimes enter the top ten) would include Colchester, Howletts, Birmingham Nature Centre, Marwell and Wild Place. At any rate, I think Edinburgh is somewhere around 14th or 15th place at this precise moment of being asked :p although I must admit it has climbed a little in the last few years, thanks to the new giraffe house and a reduction in the sheer number of meerkat exhibits.
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Very similar in how I choose mine as TL Dave, having not visited the East side of England. * Jersey & Dublin would be in top 5 if it was that way….

Chester
Highland WP
Yorkshire WP
Paignton
Whipsnade
Exmoor
Cotswold WP
Wild Place
Twycross
Marwell
 
I reckon I may be very different to a lot of people, but for me I like zoos which offer good photography options and have friendly staff and informative talks, and a few cool species, my top 10 is;

1: Manor Wildlife Park
2: Highland Wildlife Park
3: Chester
4: Exmoor
5: Whipsnade
6: Cotswold Wildlife Park
7: Port Lympne
8: Howletts
9: Marwell
10: Wolds Wildlife Park
 
TriUK said:
Jersey & Dublin would be in top 5 if it was that way….
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Neither of them are in England (or indeed the UK) let alone the eastern side of England :p

Alwaysevergreen said:
Northumberland County Zoo
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It's definitely one to watch with a very keen eye - but perhaps not one of the best in the UK *yet* :p I'd love it to ascend to such a position mind you!

Swampy said:
I feel like this thread deviated from Colchester Zoo news about a page ago...

Any chance of a thread split?
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I'll get onto it once I'm not on my phone!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
England
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I mis-wrote it - I meant that I, like you, haven’t been to zoos in Eastern England, but that if Dublin & Jersey were in the UK, they’d both be in my top 5 zoos.
I also agree that Northumberland Zoo is one to watch. It was only a few years ago we were saying that the North East really needed a good collection to compliment Kirkley Hall.
 
TriUK said:
I mis-wrote it - I meant that I, like you, haven’t been to zoos in Eastern England, but that if Dublin & Jersey were in the UK, they’d both be in my top 5 zoos.
I also agree that Northumberland Zoo is one to watch. It was only a few years ago we were saying that the North East really needed a good collection to compliment Kirkley Hall.
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If Berlin Zoo was in county Laois it’d be the best zoo in Ireland..;)
As an Irishman a piece of advice is not to mention Ireland being part of the UK to any Irish person!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Changes based on how I feel on any given day, but here goes in no particular order (with the obvious caveat that I haven't visited any collections in Norfolk, Suffolk, Sussex or Northern Ireland and therefore potential contenders there will be omitted; I'm also omitting extremely-specialised or size-limited collections such as Crocodiles of the World, Scottish Owl Centre, and Shaldon.

Chester
Cotswold Wildlife Park
Highland Wildlife Park
Whipsnade
Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Exmoor
Newquay
Paignton
Hamerton
London

Collections which float around the upper levels of the top 15 depending on my mood (and sometimes enter the top ten) would include Colchester, Howletts, Birmingham Nature Centre, Marwell and Wild Place. At any rate, I think Edinburgh is somewhere around 14th or 15th place at this precise moment of being asked :p although I must admit it has climbed a little in the last few years, thanks to the new giraffe house and a reduction in the sheer number of meerkat exhibits.
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Wouldn't disagree massively with the list, but 2 out of Paignton, London and Newquay would give way to Colchester and Howletts for me and possibly port lympne would kick out the other
 
AthleticBinturong said:
If Berlin Zoo was in county Laois it’d be the best zoo in Ireland..;)
As an Irishman a piece of advice is not to mention Ireland being part of the UK to any Irish person!
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I get it. Apologies for any offence - I was writing in the context of British & Irish Zoos, i.e. BIAZA, which Dublin is signed up to.
 
The best 10 for me would be

Chester
Colchester
Whipsnade
Yorkshire
Exmoor
Hamerton
Highland
Cotswold
Howletts
Edinburgh ( but this is a difficult one)

Compare this to current favourites

1 Exmoor
2 Hamerton
3 Yorkshire
4 Chester
5 Highland
6 Whipsnade
7 Colchester
8 Newquay
9 Cotswold
10 Port Lympne

Best of the rest Howletts, Dudley, Edinburgh. London and Paignton are not quite there at the moment
 
Going back to the discussion about the best known uk zoos. If you were to ask members of the public to name x number of zoos, the only ones I think would be frequently named outside of their local area would be Chester, Whipsnade, London, Longleat and Edinburgh.
 
NMM said:
Going back to the discussion about the best known uk zoos. If you were to ask members of the public to name x number of zoos, the only ones I think would be frequently named outside of their local area would be Chester, Whipsnade, London, Longleat and Edinburgh.
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Wouldn't disagree but as you acknowledge, someone living within 50 miles of Colchester would name it, likewise someone in Manchester or Liverpool probably wouldn't! Everyone would name London, but not because it is good!!
 
All of this discussion about the merits of the best zoos in the UK reminded me of this excellent thread which began in October 2014:

Your five favourite UK Zoos and Why?

In February 2017 I added up all the votes and here is the tally at that time (on page 7 of the thread):

Chester - 32 votes
London - 18
Whipsnade - 17
Cotswold - 12
Bristol - 11
Colchester - 11
Paignton - 10
Dudley - 8
Edinburgh - 7
Twycross - 7

However, since then there has been additional lists added to that thread and several years have elapsed. I wonder what the results would look like if someone began a new thread on the same topic. For example, Yorkshire Wildlife Park would probably make an appearance.
 
snowleopard said:
However, since then there has been additional lists added to that thread and several years have elapsed. I wonder what the results would look like if someone began a new thread on the same topic. For example, Yorkshire Wildlife Park would probably make an appearance.
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The loss of Bristol Zoo, and the effect this would have on the overall dynamics of people's lists, will also doubtless have a big impact.
 
Based on my own visits - I have yet to visit collections in Kent, Exmoor, the Cotswold's etc, however, my top ten is:

Chester
Hamerton
Highland Wildlife Park
Colchester
ZSL Whipsnade Zoo
Yorkshire Wildlife Park
Paignton Zoo
Dudley Zoo
ZSL London Zoo
Twycross Zoo

If European and also non-European collections would have been included, the list itself would have been more impressive :p with the Bronx, Berlin collections, Prague being included. As TLD mentioned, the smaller zoos such as Birmingham Wildlife Conservation Park are thoroughly enjoyable collections, however, given the smaller size or specialised species of these, it would be unfair to include these.
 
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