Top 30 UK zoos

25-09-2007

Chester zoo has a TV series coming out about the zoo, it will be aired on Channel 5, the first one being on 8th Oct i think. And featuring black rhino's Quanto (SP?) and Rosie.

25-09-2007

Thanks for the heads up taun. They've had a note on their website about filming taking place over the summer.

The Superzoo project aims to increase attendance to 1.6 million annually.

27-09-2007

Yeah i actaully saw some the camera crew filming at the zoo.

27-09-2007

Me too, they were filming when I walked down the path from the buffalo to Islands in Danger in the pouring rain. The camera was aiming in my direction but I don't know if I'll be on the show. I was on Granada's Zoo Time about 1967-68, I was filmed standing by the owl aviary.

27-09-2007

i saw them near the condor aviary

27-10-2007

Fantastic news for London zoo - they recorded their 1 millionth visitor of the year on 23 October. First time in 8 years they've passed the 1 million mark, and a big increase on last year. The recent developments (Gorilla Kingdom, Clore Rainforest and Butterfly House) have really pulled in the punters.

Chester hit 1 million visitors at the end of September too.

27-10-2007

thats great news!!

27-10-2007

Lets hope London zoo can keep up its rebuilding program and keep pulling in the public I am sure they can do a good job

27-10-2007

just looking at an old london guide book i have (time of pandas) and remembered the old ele rhino house, whats there now? like in the building, as it is heritage listed isnt it?

27-10-2007

Zooboy. Read the thread called London Zoo 'Zooworld' That is the same building......

27-10-2007

thanks bud!

12-11-2008

I'm planning on updating the visitor attendance table with 2007 data.

There are still a few zoos missing and despite trawling the internet I can't find any data for them. So if anybody can supply me with 2007 visitor numbers for the following, I'd be very grateful:

Howletts
Colchester Zoo
Paradise Wildlife Park
Combe Martin WP
Cricket St Thomas
Knowsley SP (I only have an estimate)
Monkey World (again, only an estimate)

12-11-2008

Fantastic to see my home zoo made the top ten, and is no.7 zoo in the country (excluding the theme park zoos). Kiska would've certainly drawn in extra numbers this year due to extensive press coverage, and with a African Safari Valley and Gorilla Exhibit, in the line up, this zoo is bound to make it's name more known.

Congrats to Chester, London & Longleat too.

12-11-2008

The visitor numbers are interesting, and I'm especially intrigued by London Zoo aiming for probably about 1.2 million visitors this year. That is a massive increase and a boost for a once flagging institution...but there is another perspective to take with that number. For example: the Oregon Zoo in Portland had 1.5 million visitors last year and the metropolitan population of that city is just over 2 million. Many other North American zoos have zoo attendance that is half of or close to the population of the city, as in the Calgary Zoo with 1 million visitors in a city of 1.1 million, and countless other zoos with high profile attendance numbers.

My point is this: if the London Zoo reaches 1.2 million visitors for the year, is that supposed to be impressive in a city with a metropolitan population of 13 million? Perhaps the many other sites and sounds of London (historical places, museums, castles, football stadiums, etc) already drain the wallets of Brits? It seems to me that the zoo should be doing much better than it is.

12-11-2008

Colchester's annual reports are on their web site. The attendance shown for 2007 at Colchester was 492,535