It is not a zoo really by any means. It was a zoo at one point, but the collection now is limited only to farm animals, pet birds and meerkats. Personally, I only see two ways around it - that every such farm park etc has its own category, or that Wicksteed is not eligible for its own forum.
I don't know much about this facility, but with what little I know, it sounds like it qualifies as a zoo. It does have exotic animals, even if most of the species are domestics. What species are the pet birds?
Wicksteed Park was started by the Wicksteed company, they made playground equipment and the park was a sort of leisure ground / showcase for their equipment. Since its opening an aviary, a farmyard and meerkats have been added as extra attractions. If I didn't know better I would assume that the Wicksteed thread was some sort of parody of Zoochat.
What makes you say it was a zoo? It's only ever had the odd aviary, I've never considered it to be a zoo.
I never heard of it having these things? I've only ever known it as a large playground. ZTL claims it once had sun bears (no mention of penguins or primates), this must be a mistake?
Having research a little I see there was a very small zoo there in the 50s, but it doesn't seem to have had anything like a zoo for the last 70 years.
I think you are spot on there. No need to google it, when the information is already on the forum. As stated by someone else in the park's thread, it's not a zoo, but used to have an area to hold animals from a local zoo during holiday periods. Even now, the birds and meerkats they have are not accessible out of holiday periods.
The person said they'd never heard of it, so clearly hadn't seen where it's been mentioned on the forum. Having zoo animals on view for the public would, in fact, make somewhere a zoo. Plenty of places aren't open for chunks of the year, does that make them less of a zoo, too? And again, this place is eons ahead of many places in the USA forum.
