South Lakes Wild Animal Park South Lakes WAP expansion plans

Very impressive if he pulls it all off for £3.6m -hopefully it'll further prove the point that astronomical amounts of monies spent on a single enclosure or exhibit is not the only route for zoos to improve or expand. Effective and reasonable looking enclosures can be done for small fractions of the amounts some of the larger institutions throw about.

Good luck to Mr. Gill.
 
ZooPro said:
But you get what you pay for....
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That doesn`t explain Gorilla Kingdom at London then because thats suppose to be a multi-million pound exhibit!!Money does not always make a good exhibit Chester conversion of the Sealion pool to house Giant Otters cost peanuts compared to Gorilla Kingdom.
 
zoogiraffe said:
That doesn`t explain Gorilla Kingdom at London then because thats suppose to be a multi-million pound exhibit!!Money does not always make a good exhibit Chester conversion of the Sealion pool to house Giant Otters cost peanuts compared to Gorilla Kingdom.
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I have to agree with you
 
Exactly!!!

The point I was trying to make is that the enclosures look and husbandry effectiveness are not necessarily in proportion to the money spent on it.

I saw many great looking enclosures on my recent visit to Scotland at the Highland Wildlife Park, basically they were fenced in patches of wilderness with added animal houses. Very, very good and at relatively low costs. The Lemur walk-through enclosure at Blair Drummond was similarly cheap, effective and great looking. I'd also point out the enclosures at the fledgling Yorkshire Wildlife Park which are all very well done and would not seem to have cost a fortune.

Additionally, throughout many UK zoos there are some good looking, inexpensive, enclosures for many a variety of small mammals.

Yes, on examination you realise the enclosures wouldn't have cost astronomical amounts but the enclosures visual impact is not compromised as a result of this.

I will concede however that it's probably difficult to do excellent pinniped enclosures on a shoestring budget (which may explain why a number of medium, and larger collections avoid these species or are seemingly going out of them).
 
Shorts said:
Exactly!!!

The point I was trying to make is that the enclosures look and husbandry effectiveness are not necessarily in proportion to the money spent on it.

I saw many great looking enclosures on my recent visit to Scotland at the Highland Wildlife Park, basically they were fenced in patches of wilderness with added animal houses. Very, very good and at relatively low costs. The Lemur walk-through enclosure at Blair Drummond was similarly cheap, effective and great looking. I'd also point out the enclosures at the fledgling Yorkshire Wildlife Park which are all very well done and would not seem to have cost a fortune.

Additionally, throughout many UK zoos there are some good looking, inexpensive, enclosures for many a variety of small mammals.

Yes, on examination you realise the enclosures wouldn't have cost astronomical amounts but the enclosures visual impact is not compromised as a result of this.

I will concede however that it's probably difficult to do excellent pinniped enclosures on a shoestring budget (which may explain why a number of medium, and larger collections avoid these species or are seemingly going out of them).
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I have to completely agree with you on the Highland Wildlife Park, and I really would love to know how much it cost to initially set up! But Highland Wildlife Park has done a very sensible thing and used its land to its full potential and only brought animals in that are suitable to the environment in hand.

Oh and by the way, when I read your location, I actually looked behind me, I saw a snake tank, are you my snake??

And as my last point I thought it was only a matter of time until South Lakes submitted plans for Elephants, the park is expanding rapidly and seems to be really popular with the public, no matter what we think of the place....

EDIT: I would like to see Asian by the way....
 
zoogiraffe said:
That doesn`t explain Gorilla Kingdom at London then because thats suppose to be a multi-million pound exhibit!!
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I must admit to being a bit perplexed as to where all the Money went to on the Gorilla Kingdom exhibit. There are three only main components;

1 The construction of the landscaped outdoor field and watermoat ditch.

2.The 'dayroom' which is of quite a simple (breezeblock?)construction while the offshow night quarters are a simple breeze block building and definately 'no frills' attatched.

3.The connecting 'boardwalks,' viewing windows and perimeter barriers, pathways and signage .

Compared to RORA at Chester though, it is a much more simplistic and smaller scale construction and it seems a bit of a mystery how that all cost what they say it did.
 
After visiting South Lakes and Howletts last year and learning more about the type of people involved I think it will be very interesting to see what happens with elephants at South Lakes. Apparently David Gill is seen as a bit of a maverick in the zoo world who thinks very much outside the box. Interstingly, everyone said the same about John Aspinall and many zoos have taken on some of his ideas. It could be argued that some zoos have taken on some of David Gill's ideas as to big cat feeds and adapted them.

Possibly Gerald Durrell was looked on as a bit of a radicall when he started out. Today he is looked up to as a visionary as is John Aspinall to some extent. Both of these men left a bit of a cultural shake up in the zoo world. Perhaps David Gill might be seen as doing the same thing.

Perhpas some of the land they are expanding on lends itself to elephants with just the construction of suitable housing and barriers. Even if the polar bear enclosure at HWP cost the full amount it would have been £375,000 which by todays standards is very low cost for an animal enclosure. The bulk of that was labour and machine hire which was very ably provided by the army as a training exercise saving £300K off the cost. Perhaps South Lakes have established an equally constructive relationship somewhere?
 
Wait a second, how many acres is the zoo currently??? I thought it was quite large but according to that articles its about 10/15 acres???

Could anyone fill me in, aswell could anyone get the aplication up, Im not good at finding aplications!
 
Pertinax said:
I must admit to being a bit perplexed as to where all the Money went to on the Gorilla Kingdom exhibit. There are three only main components;

1 The construction of the landscaped outdoor field and watermoat ditch.

2.The 'dayroom' which is of quite a simple (breezeblock?)construction while the offshow night quarters are a simple breeze block building and definately 'no frills' attatched.

3.The connecting 'boardwalks,' viewing windows and perimeter barriers, pathways and signage .

Compared to RORA at Chester though, it is a much more simplistic and smaller scale construction and it seems a bit of a mystery how that all cost what they say it did.
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Does the total cost also include the demolishment of the old monkey houses, perhaps thats a possibility? And then there's the aviaries, but again, they aren't anything special, as you said, it is odd.
 
JamesB said:
Does the total cost also include the demolishment of the old monkey houses, perhaps thats a possibility? And then there's the aviaries, but again, they aren't anything special, as you said, it is odd.
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I think it probably would, but only the Ape block was demolished, the other three blocks have all been incorporated or left as they are. Demolition doesn't cost very much, compared to building, either.
 
Announcement today that full planning permission for the expansion has been granted (four years after the original submission and 18 months after the initial rejection by local council) and work is due to begin very shortly. Only major change to those plans since this thread was created has been that Elephants have been dropped

Planned Opening of Easter 2014
 
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Simon McGlary;325125It could be argued that some zoos have taken on some of David Gill's ideas as to big cat feeds and adapted them. [/QUOTE said:
Wasn't this method of feeding used at Glasgow zoo, a long time before south lakes
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Feeding by poles was indeed first originated in the UK majorly at least at Glasgow Zoo, and then the idea was 'taken over' by David Gill after Glasgow closed.
 
I'm not sure about the whole pole feeding thing, Its great yeah for muscle tone and enrichment but I would like to know how it affects the animals bones and joints. there is a big weight pounding down on their legs when they drop from the poles at that height. I've seen some jump from the top. Lions in particular are not arboreal by any means. I'd like to hear a vets opinion having examined one of the cats!
 
dangers from Pole Feeding?

Vulpes said:
I'm not sure about the whole pole feeding thing, Its great yeah for muscle tone and enrichment but I would like to know how it affects the animals bones and joints. there is a big weight pounding down on their legs when they drop from the poles at that height. I've seen some jump from the top. Lions in particular are not arboreal by any means. I'd like to hear a vets opinion having examined one of the cats!
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I have raised this point before as I too wondered about the risk of long term damage from repeating these unnatural actions, particularly the landing from a great height, on a frequent or regular basis. Enrichment of this nature sounds great but does it have a downside too? It is certainly not advisable for domestic Dogs to jump from a height so why not much heavier Big Cats also?
 
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