I respect the way in which the CEO has communicated this closure & refurb to his guests & members. I wish my local zoo, Paignton, would be as transparent and forthcoming. Well done Twycross!
As 'Gruffaloland' is quite a major part of a Twycross visit for the younger children, I think they were duty bound to announce this, in order to avoid an awful lot of angry visitors...
Hoping in addition to servicing the Gruffalo machines, they give the area a general spruce up and maybe even add some species to their aviaries.
I would like to see more species of finch kept in the walkthrough. I keep finches and they are lovely, Twycross could do we with more then Zebra and Bengalese Finches. The area Twycross lacks the most is Herptiles and Birds. The NSCC plans have multiple reptile tanks and a walkthrough aviary with two other aviaries on the side. Hopefully more bird species will join in the future.
I am pretty sure Twycross kept some tropical fish back during the 90s inside the old tropical house. I seem to remember some of the outer wall had some fish tanks while the middle had the reptiles and a small Alligator pool at the exit. It is mentioned in one of my old Twycross guidebooks that they had fish but not what species they kept.
I remember there being Koi and goldfish in the Pets Corner and the Small Monkey House up until the early 2010’s
I seem to remember they had a bit more variety when it first opened. But Bengalese and Zebras are probably the toughest and breed freely so that's what they have ended up with.
Wasn't there a small koi pond inside the Amazon building which housed the spider monkeys, iguana & titi monkeys?
Absolutely! They have also done a video on the socials about how the chimp integration is coming along. Hopefully they can be a bit more transparent moving forward. I still want to know what is going on with the right hand side of the zoo!
I looked in one of my old 1980s Twycross Zoo guidebooks and inside it does mention that they did have fish tanks in the old tropical/reptile house. Does anybody remember what species were kept in the old Enchanted Forest (where Monkeys of the Amazon house is now)? I remember Bats and Toucans in there but nothing else.
I remember the old reptile house which later became the tropical house, I certainly don't remember any tanks in it I do remember a very small American alligator pool that became home to West African dwarf crocodile and wasn't suitable for them either.
I seem to remember you had to pay something like 20p to enter the old reptile house. I think the Alligators just outgrew their small pool enclosure and went out of them, but I didn't know that the Dwarf Crocodiles occupied it soon after. A few fish tanks I believe were along the outer wall in the tropical house and it is mentioned in some of my old Twycross guidebooks.
Zootierliste lists 6 species of frogs and toads, including the tomato frog, that were kept at Twycross.
The zoo has 2.1 Northern White-Cheeked Gibbons. ‘Earl’ (Born 1992 Mulhouse), ‘Kampuchea’ (Born 1994 Oregon) and ‘Hanoi’ (Born 2019 Twycross) I believe this is all the offspring the pair have had. Ethan (2004), Elliot (2007), Eric (2010), Mekong (2017) Hanoi (2019) Mekong passed away a year or two ago. ‘Ethan’ is at Paradise / Hertfordshire Zoo, ‘Elliot’ is at Frankfurt and ‘Eric’ is at Dierenrijk Zoo.
