Bristol Zoo Project Wild Place Project News 2018

The woodlands are being developed in 2018 to house, European Brown Bear, Eurasian Lynx, Wolverines, and another species not yet named.

They are currently building a new car park which is 5 times the size of the old one.

Quite excited by the new woodland exhibits they will be building in 2018, which they hope to have finished for the end of the year.

Here are a couple of photo's taken on the 18th when I visited.

Cheetah by Zooreviewsuk posted 26 Jan 2018 at 7:24 PM

European Grey Wolf by Zooreviewsuk posted 26 Jan 2018 at 7:24 PM

Mongoose Lemur by Zooreviewsuk posted 26 Jan 2018 at 7:24 PM

Ring Tailed Lemur by Zooreviewsuk posted 26 Jan 2018 at 7:24 PM

Cheetah by Zooreviewsuk posted 26 Jan 2018 at 7:24 PM

 

Where will the Bears be? On the right between the Lemur and Wolf enclosures?
And what Bears will they be getting?

 

The development is planned to be in the woods beyond the gelada enclosure. The wolves will move there from their current location. I’m fairly sure they will bring in Eurasian brown bears (as stated above).

 

Which begs the question, what will be placed in the current wolf enclosure?

 

Something completely unexpected ...

 

Rather intriguing!

 

I thought they were going to be divided into Lynx as Wolverine ? and the Bears in the Blackwood ?

 

All these developments sound very exciting! Its only 30 minutes up the motorway from me

 

TWP have today made an announcement along with a plea for donations for Bear Wood which is due to open Summer ‘19. The release states:

Bear Wood is an exciting new development due to open in summer 2019. The exhibit will transport you back in time to when the woodland was inhabited by European brown bears, European wolves, Eurasian lynx and wolverine.

A walkway will wind through seven and a half acres of woodland where our five European grey wolves will be moved to a new home which they will share with the brown bears. Lynx and wolverine will also roam the woodland as they would have done centuries ago. A ranger station, classroom, interpretation space and café will also be built creating an immersive experience.

Bear Wood will show the effects of woodland loss on our native wildlife. It is the story of what was, where we are now and what is still at stake.

 

Looks like the "species not named" is actually the wolves, drat. I'll still hold out hope for some nice hoofstock to balance out the carnivores...

 

European bison might be appropriate, perhaps even Heck cattle standing in for aurochs. Other possibilties might be red squirrels and capercailie. Would they go for wild boar when the Forest of Dean is so close?

 

Bison would be awesome, I'd love to see the zoo get a group in. Surplus males would be a good start.

I imagine boar would work as well, even with populations nearby I can't imagine many of the visitors will have seen one.

Long term I hope they bring some small species in, especially given the expertise with non-megafauna they have in the zoo itself. Native inverts of conservation concern would be great, though I appreciate wild place needs the big draws in place before it could bring in non-headliners.

 

I'm not suggesting this is necessarily wrong, but surely the main idea of Wild Place is to hold the megafauna Bristol Zoo can no longer hold. Wild Place needs to compliment the Zoo, not compete with it ?

 

I couldn't agree more, I should have clarified that I was mainly thinking of native species. If WP is looking to push European species then there's no reason why it didn't also be pushing the smaller critters as well. The herp, fish and invert houses at the zoo are pretty squeezed for capacity, and certainly they could all do more work with natives, why not move some of it up there? (Ignoring things like getting specialist staff up there) I don't see why an indoor exhibit/house themed around smaller British species would compete with the offerings from the zoo itself.

 

Hmmm. I wouldn't really like to see Wild Place turn into another Whipsnade. The collections should definitely compliment each other but there's no need for it to be small stuff/big stuff. That would really limit WP from being the best zoo it could be. Hopefully they have a more holistic plan than that.

 

When are they getting Meerkats?

 

already there

 

I'd quite like to see birds represented by eagle owls and European white storks. Maybe Wild Place could even join the re-introduction programme.

 

Why am i not surprised?

 

I get it that they need the PR and iconic species now, just agree they could eventually do with bird, herp and other species attractions.