View: Stockton 'zoo' features piranhas, pythons, monkeys and bird-eating spiders - Gazette Live the given species list includes Pardine Gennet
my only concern with this set up is will it increase the likelihood of impulse buying with out people realising the animal may be less than charismatic? i know they say they will work with people to make sure they know about welfare etc, but some of these animals will need a lot of space, sheep alpacas, not to mention racoons and marmosets. I'm going past Stockton later tonight pity I won't have the opportunity to call and look at the place.
I wonder if they will refund your entrance price if you buy something from them? I would be annoyed if I was seriously considering buying a pet from them and being charged money to go and see it! In my opinion this combination of pet shop and zoo doesn't really work but who knows.
I agree that this combination - a zoo-cum-petshop, if that is what it is, is not really a good idea. No doubt it will unfortunately encourage some idiots to keep exotic creatures that they do not know how to look after properly. Though I am not against people keeping exotic species, in actual fact I am completely all for it, and there are some excellent private collections of wild animals in the UK, but it should obviously be done properly and by people who know what they are doing.
Having visited the collection this morning, I can address a few points: In the "zoo" portion of the collection, no impulse buying would be possible as it is laid out just as a dedicated zoo would be, with informational labelling and - the key point - no price labels or any other reference to the animals being available for purchase. As such I would imagine that if one wished to obtain any of the animals in this area you would have to privately contact the collection - which would allow much more scope for prospective buyers being vetted and checked for suitability. As noted, none of the animals in the "zoo" are able to be purchased on the spot from what I observed; the animals in the exotic petshop PetMania which is attached to the collection are the only species able to be purchased on-the-spot. PetMania itself was much like any other exotic petshop focusing on reptiles, amphibians and tropical fish. As one does not have to pay to enter the shop itself, the issue you cite would not arise. You may get the impression from my above answers that the news article has given a slightly misleading impression about the collection and how easy it is to buy the animals within the "zoo" - it may be of further comfort to hear that much of the informational signage on the enclosures discusses how *unsuitable* some of the species held within are as pets, and notes the problems that uneducated people obtaining animals they cannot handle can cause. I'll be writing up my thoughts on the collection proper in a little bit, and attaching a few photographs. For now, I quite liked it. It wasn't earth-shattering but it was more pleasant and better-quality than the newspaper article made it sound. And I saw my first genet and jerboa
Fair enough TLD, you are right - it shows just how much the media can create the "wrong impression" sometimes.
Thanks for that TLD it does sound an interesting place after all, I assume they must have an actual zoo license, who knows if it takes off they may get more interesting species and dump the common ones.
Not sure; I have a feeling that the fact all the animals are theoretically available for purchase (even if this is not encouraged or advertised onsite) may allow them to run the place on the existing pet shop licence they will hold. I've not completed the list as yet, as I am still adding to it when I get a chance to consult my notes, but anyone wanting a run-through of what is viewable at the collection can now look at the collection's entry on ZTL.... although for some reason the collection is showing up somewhere in the Indian Ocean: http://www.zootierliste.de/en/map.php?showzoo=10002971
I agree that it is best to reserve one's opinion until you have actually visited it, and I intend to do just that when I have a free weekday afternoon in the near future. One thing that I do question is the actual location of this new enterprise, Portrack Lane is a place more associated with buying building materials or a new bathroom suite , to place a zoological collection there I find surprising. There used to be another small zoological collection at Stockton, at Preston Park on the Yarm Road, it was a free attraction at the park and as well as the pets corner animals it had monkeys, penguins and other exotic birds, all gone now however the large domed aviary still stands there today, as well as a butterfly house which is still open there, a far more pleasant setting than this new one .
Yeah, Preston Park *is* a rather nicer setting than Portrack Lane unfortunately I have only ever known the former in more recent years when only the butterfly house was present.
Ditto TLD and of course if the collection is using the pet shop license as you suggest if they moved they would most likely have to apply for separate zoo license,
