One of the worst zoos I've ever visited.
I visited this ‘zoo’ with my two sons, aged 6 and 8, today. The first signs were not encouraging, the road leading to the zoo is not well maintained and badly potholed in places. The car park is even worse with piles of empty wooden pallets stacked carelessly in several places, piles of sand and other materials, which made it look like a building site/rubbish tip. The suface was also extremely muddy, especially leading into the main entrance. It was noticeble that the only gravel that had been put down was in front of the house, which is presumably owned by those that run this zoo.
As far as the zoo itself is concerned, a lot of the animals are warm climate animals and, given the cold temperatures, they were largely hiding in their bedding areas and therefore not visible to members of the public. A lot of those that were visible seemed to be cold and lethargic, understandably, given that their enclosures were exposed to the elements. Even some of those animals, which were provided with heat lamps, such as the tortoises, were all hudddled under the lamp in one corner of their enclosure. What they should have, which would cost money of course, are enclosures that have covered areas that can be heated so that the animals can go outside in the warm all year round. At present a lot of them are confined to their bedding areas when its cold.
The zoo itself seems to be made of shed/fencing materials and put together very cheaply. The enclosures for most animals were very similar and did not seem to provide a habitat tailored to that animal. The paths were poorly maintained and there was lots of rubbish, old farm and building materials in clearly visible places around the zoo. I have tried to picture as much of this as possible.
A good example of how bad this place was is the playground, part of the ‘Adventure land’, which consisted of a shed with a vending machine, a set of swings, some wooden climbing type equipment, which had no soft surface underneath to prevent injury and a small circuit for pedal tractors. You can see from the photos that this circuit had a large muddy puddle in it, which meant is was largely unusable. The shed also had large piles of bird pooh on the ledge running around it, which was unpleasant.
The ‘birds of prey’ section is tiny, with about 8 different types of owl, a kestrel and a peregrine falcon.
Given that we were charged about £25 for entry, you would imagine that there would be plently to keep us entertained for a few hours. However, in reality we managed to walk round the site and see what animals we could in about an hour, which was outrageous.
Another concern is the claim that this is a ‘not for profit’ organisation, when pressed they finally admit that they are a limited company, albeit limited by guarantee. To be fair this is used by a lot of genuine ‘not for profit’ organisations but it is also used by BUPA, the health provider, as well. Given that they do not publish accounts there is no way of verifying this, so I will keep an open mind. However, there is nothing stopping them making a profit or indeed paying the directors, the couple who own the farm, a decent salary.
Overall, this was a hugely disappointing place to visit and will need a lot of investment to bring it up to the standard you would expect for the prices charged. One to avoid at present.
One small positive is that they did refund me when...
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