West midland safari park » West Midland Safari Park

14-08-2008

1. I think one or two possible sites for a reintroduction scheme have been identified, but the general impression is that, as you say, the lions couldn't be released to live wild as there is nowhere remote enough nowadays to allow this.

2. The 'myth' is because DNA testing has shown at least some lions from the Rabat Zoo/Moroccan Royal group, previously regarded as the most 'pure' are in fact descended from SubSaharan lions, not North African ones.

15-08-2008

i went to the safari park a few weeks back and counted 9 hippo's, all female (according to the keeper)

The cheetah's were all really active (they were being fed) and both paddocks were in use. I counted at least 6 cheetah's two of which still looked really young.

why do they keep the tigers behind the electric fence and away from the road?

there were two amur leopards when i visited one of which was pacing up and down the enclosure

15-08-2008

Where did the extra cheetahs come from ? I think they originally had 2 males .

16-08-2008

i haven't a clue but there were at least 4 in 1 enclosure and 2 in the other one, the 2 pairs of mature adults were hissing and swiping at the fence towards each other. two of the cheetah's were quite oyung as they were smaller with grey fluffy bits.

17-08-2008

I haven't been to West Midlands, but funnily enough Knowsley does the same thing. You would have thought that a drive-through tiger exhibit would make sense (Longleat manages it).

17-08-2008

I asked this whilst doing work experience there. Apparently they're too dangerous to be let loose amongst cars, but Longleat and Woburn do it, so I really don't know why West Midlands does.

17-08-2008

Thinking about it, I believe that West Midlands did display their tigers in a drive-through and changed it. Maybe it had more to do with animal management issues or individual animal personalities. I cannot see that tigers are any more dangerous than lions in a drive-through situation.

17-08-2008

I can vaguely remember normal tigers (and then white ones) being in the white lion area (without the hotwire at the side of the road).

There was also a 2nd tiger group in the fenced enclosure, where they normal coloured ones still live and the White Tigers were given "White Tiger Ridge" a couple of years ago.

17-08-2008

when i went there, there was two areas for tigers, white tiger ridge and a drive by which had 3 or 4 enclosures 1 of which was occupied by a pair of coloured tigers and the rest by whites

Cheetahs
19-08-2008

foz was right about the cheetahs. WMSP has now got 8 cheetahs.

http://www.wmsp.co.uk:8080/safaripar...icleId=1000050

20-08-2008

Thanks for finding that CZ . A lot of new cheetahs have come into the country recently .

20-08-2008

it sounds like they will be keeping all 8 together which will either be a breeding success or a waste of 8 perfectly good cheetahs for the breeding programme. Coming from a person with a non-zoological background it seems that by keeping all of them together it may give the females more chance of picking the male they'd like to mate with.

20-08-2008

Or the males might fight over the females.
Won't keeping them in a big group like that be stressful, since they're usually solitary?

20-08-2008

"the UK's largest unique and drive-by quarantine facility"......just if you weren't sold on the 8 cheetahs, you can check out a 'unique' quarantine facility from the comfort of your car to boot!