We have a Zoo Licence!

Our wonderful team have been busy little beavers recently, working tirelessly to help us prepare for our very first zoo inspection at the Discovery Centre. Lots of paper work to complete as well as maintaining and updating our animal enclosures! We are extremely proud to say that we were granted our zoo licence on 12th October 2018.

But why the excitement you may ask? Well, we take animal welfare very seriously and strive to provide our animals with the highest possible standards of care. All zoos in the UK are subject to the same inspections, no matter what shape and size they are. So you can rest assured that we are governed by the same licence that governs large zoos such as Chester! The zoo licence also states that zoos should be involved in education, research and conservation, all of which we are involved in but will now be increasing our efforts in all 3 areas.

Without a licence we were very restricted in what we could offer. To date, we have mainly been an outreach zoo, taking our animals to see you. With a zoo licence we can finally open our doors to the public for as many days as we like throughout the year. This means that our experience days have increased to include a variety of species and you can even spend a few hours finding out what its like to be a zoo keeper with our keeper experiences! We will also have several open days and educational sessions throughout 2019 so watch this space for more details!!