Dartmoor Zoo

On our last day in Plymouth we went to the Dartmoor Zoo, which became famous (OK, well known) after the Hollywood film told the story of an urban couple who wanted a rural change in life-style and decided to buy and operate a run-down zoo on the edge of Dartmoor.

Well, I can report both that the new owners are doing a good job, but there's a long way to go in creating a nationally important facility - in terms of housing animals, letting visitors see them better, and coverage of the animal world.

Here are some photos which hopefully give some feel for the flavour of the place.

We'll start with a fictitious animal frequently encountered in households:

This description of Kideous Horrabilous is true a lot of the time, but why call her Ella? Now, on to the real world. The zoo had quite a few representative of the animal world one would expect to find in a decent zoo, and in this case they were housed in spacious enclosures permitting a good deal of privacy. The list includes the brown bear, tigers, leopards, the capybara (hope the spelling is right!), and some large birds including this one and the peacock and the ostrich. However, there was little representation from Australia or NZ.

I liked two things in particular. Children could run through some enclosures with non-threatening animals and the picture below show Lucie and Max having a good time with a goat!

And there was an excellent display of birds of prey with some audience participation. The final picture shows, I think, a falcon ... I'm no expert on birds of prey! Several different species flew freely around the zoo, but ultimately at the beck and call of their trainer.

AS