Just watched the programme, enjoyed it and looking forward to visiting soon. I hope later episodes are a bit more upbeat, the lamb stillbirth and capybara euthanasia will not have excited the general public!!
Hi. Thanks for watching. Yeah, there's been a LOT of building going on! We just haven't stopped. I'm hoping that the regulars come back when we open and won't recognise the place! Obvs we don't know what makes it into the edit til we watch it ourselves, but you'll see developments to every section of the park Thanks very much. We work really hard on it because we don't have cleaners, janitors or a maintenance and building team....we have to do it all ourselves, so nice compliments mean a lot Thanks, we look forward to welcoming you! Yeah the first week of filming was a very tough week. We were all there for both those scenes, and we all shed a few tears. Last night, I raised a glass to poor Fernando after watching it....he was really lovely. But I guess those are the realities of zoos even during lockdown unfortunately...the crew are keen to capture every moment. There are plenty more happy babies to come though
Do you have any plans to add more ‘bigger’ exotics or keep it as it is. There is a lot of potential in the land just the local competition!
Hi. You're right, there's a HUGE amount of potential with the land, the woods etc. And there are massive plans in the pipeworks. Obviously there are always 2 main constraints....time and money. We don't have a building team, so we do the work ourselves, and obviously this year has been awful, with a dreadful February weatherise and now this. Hopefully the TV show will give us the boost we so need once we reopen. Obviously I can't go too deeply into any of our plans (as you said, there's plenty of local competition), but to add the much bigger exotics, we will need to expand the park perimeter fence...and there's plenty of space to push out into. Because our MO is to use the landscape sensitively without adding a whole bunch of fake stuff, we have amazing rolling plains, an old WW2 bomb-hole that has 40-50' trees that would be perfect for a group of primates, and ancient woodlands that are crying out for "rewilding" type animal exhibits. But for the meantime, we've used lockdown to concentrate on developing existing enclosures and preparing for a few new exciting exotic transfers once lockdown is over. So watch this space We've also had a new business (a garden centre called The Potting Shed) move onto site during lockdown. They have some great stuff, and it adds a new dimension to the place, selling many of the plants that guests will see walking around the park. They have fantastic furniture too!
Hi, I saw earlier posts about this place, which seems to be amazing. Though I live in the U.S, which I saw there was a show about here, is there any way to see it in the US?
Out of interest, most TV listings for last week's episode mentioned camels and wild badgers, neither of which were featured. I wonder if these stories will appear in a future episode, or if they've been dropped due to other "better" material becoming available?
I know, I found that odd too. to be honest. It might have been a press release before we knew what was going to happen, but all I can say is that there's been a TON of footage taken and we don't know what's going to make it into the edit. Our pair of camels, Alice & Arthur, are doing great and one of my favourite times of the day is spent peeling some of their moulting hair off. As for badgers, I've not been involved in that story. But I have done another lovely bit with native wildlife today.
Having stumbled across this show accidently I've really enjoyed the last few episodes. What's made it "real" is that it's filmed during the current climate but shows us what happens behind the scenes. Looking forward to the future episodes
Thanks a lot for watching. It was a lot of hard work making it, and a lot of fun. Life is a bit odd now that the crew has gone and it's so quiet here. What's crazy to me is that the amount of footage that was taken which wasn't used...for instance we rebuilt the raccoon enclosure, the skunks and the built a whole new reptile house, not to mention a huge number of smaller stories, but I guess that the TV people know what makes popular telly and that's what they put out there. You just have to trust their judgement. I'm looking forward to our regulars returning and not recognising the place though There was 5 intense weeks of filming to make 4 hours of TV, so I guess a lot had to be cut. Fingers crossed for a 2nd series, cos we have some exciting transfers lined up.
So was this a first then? I found it interesting to watch. Certainly made me interested in visiting, more for the rare breed farm animals.
There were 3 series made when Jim and Caela first started the original farm ages ago, but this was the first series for over a decade, and the first to focus on the Wildlife Park which wasn't even a thing back then. Jim's the president of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, so conserving british rare breeds will always be at the heart of what we do here, but we like intersperse all of that with the exotics too, so that when you turn the corner, you never know what you're going to see. We have several more exotic mammals and reptiles already lined up for post-lockdown, starting with some things to replace Jerry the alpaca (which left us in Ep4).
