johnstoni
Well-Known Member
I dislike intensely the idea that it is somehow appropriate to offer live animals for sale in a zoo setting. I think people can be impulsive, and it is easy to become inspired by interaction with animals at a zoo, and these are animals exhibited in, well, conditions you could easily replicate in your back yard.
I would be interested to see how the owners ensure that the lines between owning pets, and maintaining wild and endangered animal species, do not become blurred at their zoo.
While I respect their use of height for the primate enclosures, I do feel that 3ft square aviaries even for pygmy marmosets should be a thing of the past. Of course, I have to accept, given that I haven't visited the collection, that there may well be a larger area for the monkeys out of shot.
To me, the raccoons and coatis looked slightly weightier than in most collections I've seen. I am concerned at the apparent lack of space for the corsac fox, but again, this could perhaps be just its indoor area.
I don't really understand where the animals fit in, with the giant fibreglass models of larger animals, people, and monsters placed among smaller livestock, as well as photographs of people in science fiction and start wars costumes mixing with the animals. I guess animals are fun, and to children especially, I don't know what it is like to live in Wolverhampton but coming from a similarly deprived area, the local 'pet's corner', a bleak place in some ways, was a real oasis for me as a child. Given most 'upmarket' zoos charge upwards of £8 to £10 even for a child, if I was a single mother down the road from Wickid Animal Adventure, a trip to this collection would be affordable. So, if its ethos is to give the people of Wolverhampton close contact with exotic animals, they seem to be doing okay. The models look ridiculous to my adult eye but then again, in the middle-class setting of London zoo, statues of gorillas, dung beetles and giant tortoises seem to be of as much interest to children as the real thing.
I would be interested to see how the owners ensure that the lines between owning pets, and maintaining wild and endangered animal species, do not become blurred at their zoo.
While I respect their use of height for the primate enclosures, I do feel that 3ft square aviaries even for pygmy marmosets should be a thing of the past. Of course, I have to accept, given that I haven't visited the collection, that there may well be a larger area for the monkeys out of shot.
To me, the raccoons and coatis looked slightly weightier than in most collections I've seen. I am concerned at the apparent lack of space for the corsac fox, but again, this could perhaps be just its indoor area.
I don't really understand where the animals fit in, with the giant fibreglass models of larger animals, people, and monsters placed among smaller livestock, as well as photographs of people in science fiction and start wars costumes mixing with the animals. I guess animals are fun, and to children especially, I don't know what it is like to live in Wolverhampton but coming from a similarly deprived area, the local 'pet's corner', a bleak place in some ways, was a real oasis for me as a child. Given most 'upmarket' zoos charge upwards of £8 to £10 even for a child, if I was a single mother down the road from Wickid Animal Adventure, a trip to this collection would be affordable. So, if its ethos is to give the people of Wolverhampton close contact with exotic animals, they seem to be doing okay. The models look ridiculous to my adult eye but then again, in the middle-class setting of London zoo, statues of gorillas, dung beetles and giant tortoises seem to be of as much interest to children as the real thing.
