Hi all, despite living in Dorset I never managed to visit Poole Park Zoo. I can certainly remember where it was located but it closed whilst I was a young child. I recently discussed it with a work colleague and I had always assumed it was a very small place that only contained small farm like animals however he seemed to think that it housed a bear or a lion at one time. Can anyone confirm that and possibly list animals that were kept there? Many thanks
I believe there was a Himalayan Bear and possibly Pumas, also smaller cats, maybe Leopard Cats and others.
I used to go to Poole Park Zoo quite often they had species like Drill,Chimpanzee,as well as Lion Puma,Leopard,Bobcats,Paul Irven wrote a very good article about the history of the zoo in The Bartlett Society mag,journal 18.2007,if you can get hold of a copy.
Lion tailed macaque(single) Mona Monkey and Bennett's/Red necked wallabies and black-footed penguins were some more species kept.
I was just googling "Poole park zoo" and came across your thread- I realise it is an old thread but I just wanted to add Wallabys to the list. I remember dog walking late at night with my father when I was a little girl and the police were out looking around the Cricket pitch with spotlights and asked us if we had seen an escaped wallaby!
Although wallabies had been mentioned in the previous thread, it was nice to read about your memory. I enjoy to hear real life zoo stories, even something as little as 1 short memory like this. If you have anything else you would like to add please do so.
I was not indicating that you should do that, you are very welcome to make contributions on here. Any other memories of Poole Park zoo would be interesting to hear.
Hi I was a keeper at Poole Park zoo in 1974. Only Saturdays & Sunday as I was in my last year at school. Unfortunately no lions then only puma's Leopard, black panther and no Chimpanzees. My favourites though we're the monkey's When I used go into a cage to clean out one Individual called Alice she would come over and sit on shoulder and groom my hair much to the annoyance of her mate, Bonzo whom was in another cage.