Marwell Zoo

So, Bank Holiday and another exciting trip out exploring, this time Marwell Zoological Park...! It had been a tough decision in the morning because the weather report was pretty bad, but as it turned out the weather was awesome...so a good call! ;)

Now, wandering around the zoo (it's huge, by the way), it was clear to see that not every animal is happy in captivity...and I can break it down thusly - any ground (or) -

- water-based bird life - Very happy indeed -

- Any grazing animal -

- of any shape or size -

- Extremely happy (as long as they had plenty of grass/hay and weren't kept too near predator pens -

- Any birds that normally like to fly around a lot - a bit miserable -

- and finally, anything that normally kills and eats any of the above -

- are generally extremely miserable, pacing in small circles, over and over again (making them easy to take pictures of) -

- but then, what kind of zoo would it be without some big cats? They really, really need a much bigger place to live, with some forest (like the new enclosures at Chessington)...and I know some people are going to disagree with me here, but they should be given the opportunity to hunt live prey, or at least some realistic simulation of it...meat zooming through the enclosure on wires or some such solution...Anyway, animal wellfare aside, the grounds are fantastic -

- the animals are (largely) happy looking (especially the lemurs who even seemed content enough to sunbathe) -

- Getting around the place was easy, we managed to see everything in the space of about 3 hours, but if you were dragging a push chair it would probably take all day. They even have a tropical hothouse with insect and fishy displays, but it wasn't quite as impressive as the London Butterfly House, nor quite as hot, but they did have some *huge* fish -

- Food inside is basic (chips/burgers/hot dogs) and drinks are expensive, so bring your own...oh and *don't* go in the bat house (it's pitch black and it stinks), but all in all, a good day out... ;)

If you want to see the rest of my pics then the flickr stream is here...