I've heard that the giraffe and rhino WILL still be moving later in the year and elephants will have a new house built where the giraffe and rhino are currently, but I wouldn't put it past Gill to put them all in together, as in the ORIGINAL expansion plans I saw years ago online had the elephants as a huge new exhibit in the expansion (possibly now his Africa exhibit)
I'd argue it's more suitable for elephants to walk down than a giraffe.. But having read over his plans again, an elephant house was ALWAYS the plan for the expansion, and a few weeks ago the zoo did post the giraffe and rhino would be heading over later in the year, perhaps Gill has a huge Africa exhibit in mind, certainly fits with his 'safari' theme
Wonder if they are going where the Bears are now. There seemed to be some digging going on in that area.
Lifted from the park's FB page; Two new arrivals enjoying their new homes... Maned Wolves now living in the South American area with the Tapirs and Spider Monkeys. Two new Andean Condors met their new friends our existing two Condors Sol and Luna ,yesterday for the first time. These two Condors were given to us by Santiago Zoo, Chile, South America in our international exchange programme.
Big news. David Gill on his facebook: "Today the Zoo operating company made a decision to take on the Zoo Licence from me and take me away from the responsibility for the first time in 21 years. I have been trying to remove myself from the Zoo day to day for nearly 3 years but finally the other Directors have decided to give me the retirement I have worked so hard for !! Thank you !!"
I wonder if this was preventative before the upcoming court case next week. Makes one wonder if they were happy to retain the zoo licence, only if Gill isn't in control, if the new directors have 'given' him retirement before a hand was forced. According to nwem the court case is next week Court case against Dalton zoo is adjourned
I see another new facebook page has been created called "Safari zoo" it seems they have now decided to drop the 'South lakes' element. I wish they'd just decide what it's called and stick to it
zoo licence there was a legal notice in the local press from barrow council a couple of months ago stating that he council had a duty to ensure holders of animal licences are suitable to do so. Various pieces of legislation that the types of convictions that if held,would render a person unsuitable to hold such a licence..This was a consultation process running until the 20th August,the results would be considered by the council executive committee on the 9th September.This of course could just be coincidental to Gill trying to offload his licence. I would have thought,as in the case of a public house,to transfer a licence it has to be done by the local licencing authority and you cannot just pass it on As for big cat,s so called slanderous allegations, nothing he has said is untrue,i know this as i live locally and know how Gill reacts to situations he does not agree with.
https://www.facebook.com/david.s.gill.5/posts/10153202387888741?pnref=story Is that supposed to be a joke about the "best bear facility in Europe". However the new enclosure looks good for the bears.
I did have a thought the other day about making two threads, one for actual news and the other for bigcat speciali's nonsense. Anything that wasn't news I would simply transfer over to the other thread as it was posted, then people could keep up with news instead of having to avoid the threads altogether. However, that was (more or less) supposed to be the intention for this thread - I split off an earlier portion at the start of the year and renamed it as a "discussion" thread. But obviously that didn't work in making this thread readable. Maybe I'll do it anyway, and go through and excise all the "look what it says on Facebook and Tripadvisor" non-news from this thread. I'm not sure there would be much left though.
No such thing as "best", you have good, bad, poor, first-class, excellent, could do better but no "best". I am sure other collections have great bear enclosures.
I know right. I am finding these claims South Lakes constantly throws out there a bit tedious now and hyperbolic. I am starting to think all of these jokes are just satire because they miss the mark so much.
okay I have just spent quite a while cutting all the non-news-related posts from this thread and transferring them over to the other one (http://www.zoochat.com/38/south-lakes-discussion-thread-398135/), and also deleting a few posts which were not worth keeping. This has reduced the current thread by about a half. There is still unfortunately quite a bit of rubbish in this thread because those posts stem from actual news posts, and hence are relevant in that respect. Still a lot better than it was though.
I've not read much of the debates about this place, but having been to South Lakes yesterday and going back today, I have quite a positive view of it. Not having maps around the park was infuriating because I couldn't find the Bears, but one of the keepers was helpful enough when I did get round to asking. Good size enclosures and plenty of decent views for photography make me happy, although having a Lemur in the background can ruin an Andean Bear photo
https://www.facebook.com/safarizoo2/posts/1679662782266030 New pictures on South Lakes page. The first picture gives you a good idea of what the new Andean Bear enclosure looks like. Certainly looks better than there last enclosure.
