Marwell Wildlife Marwell Zoo News 2019

Just got back from a visit today. A summary of updates, thoughts and questions.


This takes the biscuit. Empty (including longstanding empty) animal enclosures are being used as fake enclosures for lego dinosaurs. This includes the former waterfowl lake outside the gift shop, the site of the old snow leopard enclosure and macaque island. I think the lego dinosaurs should have included a megalodon with Marwell senior management jumping over it.


Trees are being removed from the site of the old lion enclosure and where the takin used to be. Going by the tracks it looks like heavy machinery has been there recently. Is this preparation for the new water and wetlands development?


New trees appear to have been planted in the former sitatunga enclosure. Is this replacing the trees they are removing elsewhere and does this mean this will no longer be used for animals?


There were keepers in the serval enclosure removing branches and foliage. Is this just regular maintenance or are changes a foot?


The coatis have gone and red pandas are now in their former enclosure.


This was my second visit since the tropical house opened and things were a lot easier to see. Are pygmy marmosets new? I don't remember them before.


On the subject of possible new species, I don't remember Kirk's dik-dik before. They are with the dorcas gazelles.


The African Valley has been renamed Valley Field. The only animal species label is for mountain zebra but they were not in the valley. They were in their normal enclosure.


There are Grevy's zebra in the roan antelope paddock in addition to Wild Explorers.


Life Among the Trees has new signs and the area has been extended to include the binturongs, cusimanses and what used to be world of lemurs.


Lemur loop is still shut.


Wallaby walkabout is open.


The meerkats are back in their normal enclosure near Aridlands and Cafe Graze.

 

Forgot to add, but today seemed to be the idiots day out. Overheard conversations include
- Otters being called crocodiles.
- People looking at the information sign about cusimanses and then stating that they are from Portugal.
- Scimitar horned oryx being called unicorns.

 

To reply to some of the points you made,the former Takin and Peccary area I dont think that will be part of the new wetlands area and will remain empty,the former Sitatunga paddock planting trees in for future for browse.Pygmy Marmosets have been in tropical house since it opened,likewise Dik Dik have been in with Dorcas Gazelle for some time,the valley field yes one zebra in there at the moment sad but should never have been done.The Coatis left Marwell some time ago.

 

There were four in there last Saturday.

 

I was there a month or so ago and the valley was labelled as having Preswalski’s horses in but that may have changed. I didn’t see any of them.

A few questions:

1) When and why were the Greater Kudu replaced with Lesser Kudu?

2) Why did the sitatunga move from their enclosure at the bottom of the park?

3) What happened to the Takin?

4) What species are likely to be lost in the next year or so?

 

It just gets worse and worse and worse! This place is finished in 5 years unless someone with a clue about zoos takes over.
I didn't visit last year for the first time in 11 years, I won't bother this, couldn't care less about £mult million tropical house, built whilst Marwell dies!! Very average zoo left!

 

Received an email re brickosaurs today! Do I care? No! Sick of seeing former animal enclosures becoming non animal areas! Marwell is the worst offender I know for this, I won't go again even though its free for me!

 

1 only good thing to happen recently!



2 probably for a car park like the takin enclosure and everything else along that edge of the zoo!
3 see above
4 Who knows!? Several by the sound of it!

 

They were in the large paddock next to the addax a couple of weeks ago (not last sat as I mentioned before)

 

I don't think the zoo will die as from what I understand the financial results under the current management have been good.

It appears to me that the current management philosophy is to invest money for improvements into large grandiose headline projects, keep ABCs they have and other popular species very prominent but cut back on animals, species and areas where the general public are unlikely to notice in order to save some money.

The kind of people who would notice those cutbacks are the kind of people who would frequent a forum such as this.

 

The last Greater Kudu left Marwell in 2014,they used to have a group of around 20 but that just went down to about five,Lesser Kudu arrived in 2016,there is now a group of 7,again with Sitatunga in the past there were about 20,now just 4 females,and people were just walking past there now old enclosure never seeing them,as I said the old area will now be used to grow browse,pair Takin male died in 2014 female left for Highland WP.I am sure a few species will go over the next couple years and some will arrive,Marwell have lost half its mammal species in the last ten years,I would be very surprised if they lost any more.

 

I have no doubt you are right, my cancelled annual pass will probably be replaced by dozens of new families buying new passes. It's these people who want the Lego, dinosaur models and playgrounds, so they will get that. I guess money talks, but I just can't be convinced the changes made have improved the zoo.

 

I take it they still have the Arabian Oryx? But in view of recent developments I wonder how much longer..

 

The Arabian Oryx were still there as of yesterday.

An interesting thing. I decided to look to see how well they are doing. Their annual report is on their website. In 2017 they had a net profit of £2.1 million. In 2018 it had dropped to £300,000. The report attributes this to a drop in visitor numbers due to the weather (hot summer and poor weather around other key times such as easter).

If you look on trip advisor the majority of reviews are positive but there are still a significant number commenting on empty spaces or lack of animals. Maybe the general public are also noticing and have started to vote with their feet.

 

Thanks for highlighting this, I don't usually take much notice of trip adviser reviews, but having looked back at the most recent reviews, there are a lot of 1 out of 5 scores! It also appears from the Marwell responses to criticism that they either don't understand or don't want to understand, I suspect the latter!

 

Comments about empty enclosures are pretty common on tripadvisor type reviews whether justified or not; general criticisms seem to be either that the animals don't have enough space or that there are empty enclosures (plus the usual about sad looking animals). I'm intending to visit after a gap of a couple of years, so I will be interested to see what impression I come away with.

 

That should please @pipaluk

 

It's a start I guess....

 

Apologies if this has already been stated;

*There has been a Greater flamingo chick born, the first in 4 years.
*1:0 plains zebra and a scimitar horned Oryx(unknown sex) was born in June
*1:1 Lesser Kudu calves were born June time, the first time they have been bred here.

Probably doesn't make up for any animal departures but suppose it's good news anyhow.