Folly Farm News from Folly farm

An application has been submitted by the park's owners to build a £500'000 penguin pool.
The pool will be designed to hold a group of 20 Humboldt's penguin.

Farm reveals plan for £500,000 penguin pool (From Western Telegraph)

A new house has been built for the cusimanse to accommodate the ever expanding group.

 

Never been there but nice to know that they can expand and develop. It's hard to imagine an animal attraction without penguins these days! I would have thought penguins and meerkats are must-sees for many zoo visitors.

Also interesting to know that they expect 8 new jobs to be created by adding one new exhibit! Perhaps there is hope for animal management students like me who want to work in zoos

 

£500,000 for a new penguin pool?

Sounds very expensive to me?!

 

Not really, when you consider: architects fees, materials, builders, filtration systems (they're not cheap).

Personally, although I've never visited, I think this place seems to be developing quite nicely at a steady pace and seems to have a nice mix of species.

 

I suppose so! The sort of enclosures that I generally think about, are big cats and so on, which are generally pretty cheap to house, just fencing for enclosure and a house.

Still seems like a huge amount of money for a small park, but good luck to them!

 

I'm not sure what its visitor figures are but I'm pretty sure that you would find it gets more visitors,than its neighbour Manor House Wildlife Park,I visited the 2 about 7 years ago and Folly Farm had by far the greater number of visitors and by far the better collection!

 

1.1 miniature donkeys recently born, and named Dora and Dixie..

 

There's a saying 'a sheep's worst enemy is another sheep'(because of diseases). I guess you could say 'A Zoo's worst enemy is another Zoo' at least when its closeby- as in this case. The two places must work against each other a bit in competition for the available customers.

 

Planning permission granted and funding secured for the Penguin's: Should be open for Easter 2013
Folly Farm News: Penguin Project Go Ahead

 

7.0 Squirrel Monkey have arrived from Colchester. Now on show near the Ocelots

 

The enclosure that previously housed capuchins/armadillos was empty when I visited last month so I guess this is where they are going , it is next to the ocelot .

 

capuchins and armadillos elsewhere in the zoo?

 

Armadillos in an indoor exhibit with common marmoset and douroucouli , no sign of brown capuchins .

 

@Bele, quite like the sound of that indoor exhibit!

Curio remains the whereabouts of the capuchins.

 

The Penguins have arrived and are in off show quarantine prior to the exhibit opening later in the Spring (late April/early May)
Pembrokeshire zoo welcomes new penguins | Wales - ITV News

 

Male South American tapir Shawn and his two sons Cavalo and Jerremiah have moved to Knowsley . Five offspring were produced with female Sommer . Their daughters Ligea and yarah remain at Folly Farm .
Twin ring-tailed lemurs ahve been born .
The 16 newly-arrived Humboldt'd penguins came from collections in France , Germany and Cornwall . The new Penguin enclosure is due to open in May .

 

Penguin Coast opens on 25th May.

 

Article about Zulu, the tallest Zoo-giraffe :
Folly Zoo's 19ft tall giraffe named Zulu may be tallest of the species on record | Daily Mail Online

 

The tallest giraffe recorded was reckoned to be George , a Masai giraffe who lived at Chester Zoo between 1959 and 1969 ( I reckon I must have seen him there ) . His height is quoted as 19ft 3in. or 5.88m by some . As the Daily Mail article says , how do you measure a giraffe ?

 

7 Rodrigues Fruit Bats and a two toed sloth have joined the collection:

VIDEO: Tuppee the sloth to hang out at Folly Farm (From Western Telegraph)