Paradise Wildlife Park have revealed plans for their new White Lion habitat, Lion Pride Lands, opening in April 2019: Pride Lands Coming Soon... - Paradise Wildlife Park There is also a video on their facebook of ongoing construction work: https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2352362521503759
Although the current exhibit is poor, wouldn’t PWP be better off concentrating on African or Asian lion? I thought the keeping of white lion was frowned upon in zoo circles, certainly with regards breeding them.
I don't believe they breed them anymore, and they are an old pride left over from times when it was more acceptable so I would assume they'll replace them with Asiatic or African once they pass on.
Several Zoochatters have said that zoos have to keep ABC animals in order to pay for more obscure species. As captive big cats, such as lions, are unlikely to be bred as part of a reintroduction programme, does it really matter what is kept? If more people visit Paradise Wildlife Park to see white lions, rather than Asiatic or African lions, isn't that a good thing? There are many African and Asiatic lions in other zoos.
Big Cat Sanctuary have around 12 White Lions though, of which there is a young Male (around 3), there are also around 7 young females. They aren't breeding the Male as he is related to all the others and the enclosure with most of the lioness' has a Tawny male in there but given at least 7/8 of these cats are under 4, I would imagine when the older pride passes on at Paradise, they will simply move over the younger pride. I would imagine it would be some time before White Lion is phased out at Paradise.
As far as im aware no zoos in the UK can breed white lions anymore so I assume they will be phased out in the future however the white lions at paradise arent particularly old so it will be some time before this happens.
The new white lion enclosure is due to open on the 6th of april. I would imagine the lions will be moving in soon. This project is supposed to be the start of a ten year master plan for the park to upgrade most of the enclosures.
Paradise doesn’t really appear to have space to improve its exhibits though. Everything is sort of on top of each other already, unless they plan to expand into their huge car park or the dinosaur zone.
There was talk at one stage of expanding the zoo across the main road onto the land covering the overflow car park. Access would have been connected via a raised footbridge. Whether this is still an option I’m not sure, but there were issues with the neighbouring landowners.
I think most changes are going to occur to the big cat enclosures as these are there star animals and what they are most famous for. Wasnt there talk of a new jaguar enclosure?
Thing is though it’s only really the cat enclosures and the penguin enclosures that are decent. I personally would have hoped the next improvement if any would have been the Lemurs. If the white lions are leaving their current exhibit to go to the new one and not that they are having two prides then that exhibit could easily be modified to make a decent lemur walkthrough
I was under the impression that the male White Tiger (currently being held at Smarden during the renovations) is supposed to be moving into the current White Lion exhibit when he is returned
Yes once the white lions have been moved to the new enclosure their old one will be refurbished to become the new white tiger enclosure.
Visited yesterday - the new lion enclosure certainly gives them more space and provides an improved viewing experience for the visitor. I would have liked to see more options for the lions to go off show if they wanted to. There was one inside area they could do this but outside is pretty barren in terms of foliage and has windows everywhere. Didn't seem to bother the lions though to be fair. No sign of building work at the Jaguar enclosure - looks to have been abandoned completely and I do hope they swap them around regularly as the smaller area the male is in is totally inadequate imo. Did spot what looked to be a travel crate in the larger side of the enclosure so perhaps the younger female will be moving on. This is total speculation. In other news the old wolf enclosure (not in the woods) is now occupied by goats and several of the aviaries in the bird garden are empty with signs up stating this is for redevelopment. The little amazon house has what I think are some new outside areas along the back - or possibly you can just get to them now / I've never noticed them before? The area where they do the bird show is now cordoned off to be more of an 'arena' and I think they have reduced the amount of seating. The Lorikeet walkthrough looks to have been abandoned - which is no bad thing imo. Only other thing to say is oh my god... The school visitors. Isn't it supposed to be an educational visit? Why are the supervising adults banging on the glass, allowing the kids to drop litter and just going along with the kids when they say things like "oooh look at the cheetah" when they are plainly looking at a Jaguar / tiger? I genuinely had to tell a couple of the adults not to bang on the glass. No wonder the kids are a nightmare when they reach the non-supervised group age. I'm going to contact one of the schools to tell them how unimpressed I was. It was very bad.
It would be good if more people did what you are doing. As to being 'educational' the general consensus seems to be that at this late stage of the summer term 'education' goes out of the window to be replaced by them just doing whatever they like. But to hear of the example they are being set by adults is even worse.
