Blackpool Zoo Blackpool Zoo News 2021

An article on the births that have occurred at Blackpool Zoo in the last 12 months:

Meet the gorgeous Blackpool Zoo babies born over the last year

The zoo has welcomed offspring of the following species: North American tree porcupine, King colobus, Capybara, Coppery titi monkey, Pileated gibbon, Sitatunga, Giant anteater, Bactrian camel, Rhea and Caribbean flamingo.

 

Here is an article about a keeper, Peter Morris: Blackpool Zoo keeper retires after nearly half a century

 

Visited last week had a great day. Zoo was doing very well never seen the over flow car park so busy. Felt sorry for staff employed to encourage social distancing. Saw gorillas being fed from a distance naturally that's going to cause a crowd. Staff there telling people there not distancing enough several times and nobody budges. Not saying the job is pointless but if nobody listens might aswell be. Only new thing I noted they've opened a path that's been closed for some time and you can see a kookaburra which is normally of display.

 

Bit like teaching in a secondary school
then....?

 

Also worth noting that the kea enclosure has been demolished.

 

Last time I visited it held one old kea and n mice (n standing for a large integer, just as it did in my old maths lessons).

 

The previous inhabitants were mother & son I believe from what I was told.

 

I visited Blackpool Zoo for the first as an adult on 5th July, previous visit as a child must have been over 20 years ago. I couldn't really remember anything from that visit so I was treating it like a first time visit. To be honest I didn't really know what to expect from Blackpool, and although we had very few no shows, I left feeling a little disappointed.

A lot of the enclosures in the zoo look dated, with many enclosures smaller than they should be in my opinion. The big cat enclosures were particularly poor, with small cramped indoors and very little to keep them occupied on the outside. The female Tiger actually looked quite thin, I'm not sure if she is unwell but she certainly didn't look healthy.

The Giraffe enclosure was another area that didn't look sufficient at all, again with little space indoors and not a particularly large paddock outside. Also signage advised the Giraffe are not part of a breeding programme, are they all hybrids? One of the females was exhibiting very repetitive behaviour, not nice to witness at all.

The indoor Ape House was another space that just didn't look big enough. The Gorilla's outside area looked quite large, but the Orang's only have access to a small outdoor area with a climbing frame, again looking dated.

On a positive note, the Sealion enclosure is one of the best I've seen for the species, very large pool and looked well designed. The new Elephant enclosure also looked good, not as spacious as I thought it was going to be from the marketing but still a good sized enclosure.

The zoo overall was very clean and tidy, with plenty of hand sanitising stations and visitors generally sticking to all the current guidance which makes for a much nicer visit.

I don't want to be overly critical of Blackpool, we did enjoy our visit and as I said, seen pretty much everything, I just think there are a lot of areas where improvements are needed, hopefully these will come soon.

 

Bet you saw Emmett the Bull while you were there. How is he doing ?

 

I did Jedd, he seemed to be doing just fine.

 

That's good

 

I visited yesterday and noticed a few things. There was something new being built where the kea used to be. Also the bull elephant was separated all day from the Cows I don't know whether he usually is but thought he was normally mixed with them. And finally the aardvark enclosure had about half a dozen mice taking over.

 

Depends if the bull Emmett was in season or must… and then he would then be dangerous to be in with the females as he would be very hormonal … so they know when he needs time apart… as I would expect by now one or more of the females is pregnant and it be at least another year before we hear of any new baby elephant born with gestation of 22 months!,

 

Emmett is usually normally with the females quite a lot of the time.

 

Most bull elephants are not aggressive towards other elephants when in musth and can be kept together with females and calves without problems.

 

Did you donate?

With more money they would be were you want them and were they want to be. Don't be critical about a company doing a good show on a budget.

 

No I didn't donate, I donate to the RZSS as a member. I can't afford to donate to every zoo, even though I would love to. I bought 3 full price tickets for my visit, ate and drank at the zoo's facilities and purchased from the gift shop. I think that is quite satisfactory for a one time visit. All in this was well over £100. I am entitled to my opinion and my original post did say that I didn't mean to be overly critical. I'm not sure what you think the point of a forum is if we can't all express our opinions freely and reasonably without being questioned about making financial contributions.

 

So you did donate.

 

No I didn't donate. A donation is when you give money and get nothing in return. I purchased 3 admission tickets, I purchased food and drink, and I purchased items from the gift shop. None of those things are donations, they are purchases which contribute to the zoos income.

 

Picky aren't you

I don't see it that way tbh, buying food on the premises, gift shop stuff etc, is essential donating to the benefit of the zoo.

When SLWP did free winter entry we made a point of buying some drinks and buying a few bits to donate some extra revenue to them.