Latest news with #BristolZooProject
Daily Mirror
20-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'Distressing' fate of gorillas left behind after zoo closed two years ago
A troop of eight gorillas have remained living at Bristol Zoo Gardens since it closed to the public in September 2022, with intruders breaking in to their enclosure A tragic fortunes of a group of gorillas left behind after a zoo closed two years ago has been revealed. The troop of eight gorillas - Jock, Touni, Kera, Kala, Afia, Ayana, and toddlers, Hasani and Juni - have remained stuck living at Bristol Zoo Gardens' Clifton location since it closed to the public in September 2022. Sadly, the troop has been left tormented and traumatised by a series of break-ins after the Bristol Zoo Project said "false information" was disseminated online. The charity released a video on its Facebook page to raise revealing how the animals - including Jock, the oldest silverback gorilla in the UK - have suffered. READ MORE: Theme park left abandoned and 'frozen in time' where Orca whales still alive left to rot In the video, keepers said the latest trespassers had not been able to get near the gorillas thanks to increased security, but added that repeated attempts to gain access to the family of primates are "really distressing" for them. Imogen, one of the zookeepers, said loud alarms and sounds are triggered during each attempt. She said: "Although it is good news that our stepped up security has managed to keep the trespassers away from the gorillas, it does mean that every time somebody comes onto the zoo grounds, the alarms and sounders go off, which are quite loud - and that's actually really distressing for the gorillas." Gareth, another zookeeper, added the break ins, when described in "human terms", are comparable to "someone snooping around a family home outside". He explained: "The residents of that house will be worried and scared. The gorillas feel those emotions as well - especially the young, like Hasani and Juni, and the elderly, like Jock. "We've had issues immediately after the break ins the next day, doing basic husbandry routines because Jock in particular is so tired he just doesn't want to move." Hannah Windross, Director of People and Public Engagement, Bristol Zoological Society, said their former Bristol Zoo Gardens site has been targeted by trespassers on several occasions since July 2024. She explained: "This has resulted in videos and misinformation being spread on social media. Unfortunately, each time the videos are re-shared, we experience new break-ins at the site, where our Critically Endangered western lowland gorilla troop is being cared for by our expert keepers." "Our heightened security has ensured recent trespassers haven't been able to get near to the gorillas, but each time it happens, and alarms are set off in the middle of the night, it causes the troop distress. We take these incidents seriously. The care and welfare of our animals is always our top priority. "Our experienced keepers and dedicated welfare team have continued to care for the gorillas since the closure of Bristol Zoo Gardens, just as they did when the site was open to the public. We hope our supporters will help us raise awareness of the harm these continued break-ins are causing to our animals and combat misleading information that the site is empty. "It has been well publicised that the troop are still living in the Clifton site, and work is underway to create a new African Forest habitat at Bristol Zoo Project, which they will move into. There, they will be joined by many other of the world's most threatened species." Wildlife charity Born Free said it was "deeply concerned" for the health and safety of both individuals gaining access to the former zoo site, as well as the welfare implications for the gorillas which remain. "The presence of strangers and the loud noise from unpredictable alarms could be highly stressful for the gorillas and such chronic stress could pose short and long-term health risks; especially when combined with the many health and welfare issues great apes already experience in zoos," Chris Lewis, Born Free's Captivity Research and Policy Manager, told the Mirror. "More widely, it once again raises questions around the confinement of great apes, and whether the keeping of such profoundly intelligent and sentient animals can be ethically justified in today's society." The troop is now due to move a new Central African Forest habitat at the Bristol Zoo Project site near Cribbs Causeway this summer, ahead of its opening to the public in 2026. A spokesperson for Bristol Zoo said: "The gorilla troop will move across to their new habitat at Bristol Zoo Project in the summer of 2025 and the cherry crowned mangabeys, who will be sharing their habitat, will be carefully introduced. Time has been set aside for them to integrate and acclimatise to their new homes. Our African Forest habitat is due to open to the public in spring 2026." The Central African Forest (CAF), which will be located at the Bristol Zoo Project near Cribbs Causeway, was originally planned to be open in the summer of 2025 but has been delayed until spring 2026. Work on the new habitat began in June 2024 after planning permission was granted in January. However, the discovery of swallows and wrens, two species of nesting birds, have been located within the old Okapi Stable, which was due to be demolished as part of the development. The nesting birds are protected so the demolition of the stable was delayed until the birds were able to fly in late summer last year. This meant that construction of the new Crocodile and Parrot House, within the CAF, was delayed.
BBC News
05-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Bristol Zoo to house RHS Chelsea Flower show rainforest garden
A rainforest garden due to be displayed at RHS Chelsea Flower Show later this month is going to be housed at the Bristol Zoo Project. The Wildlife Trusts' British Rainforest Garden is going to be used as an educational space within the zoo after it has been shown at is due to open in October and feature boulders and fern-lined trails, with a canopy of native trees created from hazels, field maples and silver birch from the show designer Zoe Claymore said: "The chance to educate the next generation of conservationist and gardeners is truly a huge honour." The garden can be seen at site number 340 throughout Chelsea week from Tuesday 20 May to Saturday 24 will then be recreated and reimagined in Bristol to inspire a link back to historic rainforests and teach younger garden will feature boulders, lush undergrowth, lichen-encrusted trusts, honeysuckle and ivy to bring the rainforest environment to life. Justin Morris, chief executive of Bristol Zoological Society, said: "We are extremely excited about the arrival of the British Rainforest Garden later this year. "It will fit perfectly into our Sanctuary Garden. "This area will form the beginning of a new gardens biome at Bristol Zoo Project."He added visitors would be encouraged to pause and reflect on the value of gardens and how they could take action to protect Brown, director of climate change and evidence at The Wildlife Trust, said: "How magical to rehome this little rainforest garden in a place already loved by generations of families."The garden has been designed to be low carbon, with no concrete, clay, peat compost or virgin wood used in the design and all the plants are from UK nurseries using peat-free British Rainforest Garden was funded by grant-making charity Project Giving Back and supported by Aviva.
The Independent
05-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Linking Britain's rainforests could ensure their survival amid climate crisis, experts say
Scaling up and linking areas of healthy rainforest habitat, by planting native trees and enabling natural regeneration of the woodlands, is crucial to ensuring they and the wildlife they support can survive in the face of climate change, conservationists say. Wildlife experts describe temperate rainforest – a globally rare habitat that once swathed western coasts of England, Wales, Scotland, the island of Ireland and the Isle of Man – as the 'jewel in the crown' of the country's landscapes. However, these habitats are now a pale shadow of their former selves, with their area shrinking from a fifth to just 1 per cent in the UK as they are cleared for timber, commercial forestry and agriculture. They are now found only in fragments that face multiple threats, including isolation, invasive species and rising temperatures which put their unique micro-climate at risk. Conservationists are fighting to restore and expand the last remaining fragments of the UK's rare temperate rainforest as climate change looms. Restoring these ancient woodlands can also play a role in tackling climate change, storing carbon and reducing run-off and flooding caused by increasingly heavy rainstorms, they argue. Efforts underway include a £38.9 million, 100-year programme by the Wildlife Trusts, funded by insurance giant Aviva, to restore 1,755 hectares (4,337 acres) of rainforest along the Atlantic coastline, from Cornwall to Scotland, including Wales, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. The Wildlife Trusts is also taking a rainforest garden to Chelsea Flower Show, which they have announced will be rehomed at the Bristol Zoo Project after the world famous horticultural event, in an effort to raise awareness of the rare habitat. Tara Cummins, co-ordinator of the Aviva temperate rainforest programme at the Wildlife Trusts, which is working with local and national wildlife trusts to deliver the scheme, said: 'The aim is to go beyond traditional habitat restoration, creating entirely new rainforest.' Ms Cummins said temperate rainforests needed 'incredibly specific conditions to grow', with steady temperatures and a good level of rainfall. But she said: 'With climate change those conditions are found in less and less areas.' So expanding the habitat – and linking up with existing patches of rainforest – is key to ensure the woods and their wildlife can survive the changing climate. The programme comes at a time of debate over the use of land, with pressure for food security, development, nature restoration, climate targets and energy. But Ms Cummins said the scheme was targeting only land that was not valuable for food production, such as heavily degraded land, which had been sitting on the market for several years. And she said: 'Restoring these habitats and wild places is critical for climate change, which is also critical for guaranteeing food security,' with the woodlands storing carbon and slowing the flow of water to curb flooding. The programme has nine sites so far, with seven locations already announced, including Skiddaw in Cumbria, which will eventually look to plant 300,000 trees over 270 hectares and restore around 400 hectares of blanket bog. Elsewhere, Creg y Cowin, on the Isle of Man, was the first site to plant trees in the programme. And in Devon, more than 7,000 trees have been planted at Bowden Pillars on the edges of the Dart river valley this winter, to create new rainforest close to existing examples of the ancient wooded landscape. Not far away, a temperate rainforest nature reserve in the Dart Valley, managed by Devon Wildlife Trust, shows how rich the habitat can be. Even in early spring before the trees come into leaf, the woodlands hugging the hills around the Dart are a bright green, with rocks, tree trunks and branches festooned with mosses, liverworts and ferns and an array of lichen. The river is home to rare brown trout and otters, while birds including redstart, pied flycatchers and red-listed lesser spotted woodpeckers are also found here, along with adders, hazel dormice and common lizards. Pine martens have been reintroduced in the area, and it is one of only a handful of sites that is home to the blue ground beetle. Peter Burgess, director of nature recovery at Devon Wildlife Trust, said temperate rainforest such as in the Dart valley is 'the jewel in the crown of habitats we've got in the country, but they're so much smaller, a pale shadow of their former selves'. He said there was a need for a critical mass of rainforest to create a healthy habitat in the face of recent severe droughts and damaging floods, and future predictions that these will worsen. 'Scale is so important,' he said, with larger and more complex woodlands more resilient and more likely to return to health than smaller, isolated patches, while rare and threatened wildlife would be able to find niches in larger woods to better weather climate-driven weather extremes. 'The precious and fragile areas which remain need to be increased in size, their condition improved, and fragmented woodlands joined up to ensure they are resilient and can thrive long into the future,' he said. The rainforest project is part of a £100 million programme by Aviva of projects in the UK and Ireland using nature to tackle climate change, and it is expected to remove 800,000 tonnes of emissions over 100 years. Claudine Blamey, chief sustainability officer with Aviva, said: 'This seemed like an amazing project to actually reinstate temperate rainforests across the west side of the UK, and to bring back that diversity that isn't there, such an important biodiversity, that the UK will benefit from as climate starts to change, as we start to see more and more impacts from climate change.' She said it was 'logic' as an insurance company to understand the role nature could play in protecting habitats, homes, areas and communities, and to use it to help with the worsening impacts of climate change. Natural solutions, such as restoring habitat, could be part of the solution to issues such as flooding, she said.
The Independent
04-05-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
‘Scale is so important' – the fight to revive Britain's vanishing rainforests
Conservationists are fighting to restore and expand the last remaining fragments of the UK's rare temperate rainforest as climate change looms. Wildlife experts describe temperate rainforest – a globally rare habitat that once swathed western coasts of England, Wales, Scotland, the island of Ireland and the Isle of Man – as the 'jewel in the crown' of the country's landscapes but warn they are a pale shadow of their former selves. The area of Britain covered by these woodlands has shrunk from a fifth to just 1%, cleared for timber, commercial forestry and agriculture. They are now found only in fragments that face multiple threats including isolation, invasive species and rising temperatures which put their unique micro-climate at risk. Conservationists say scaling up and connecting areas of healthy rainforest habitat, by planting native trees and enabling natural regeneration of the woodlands and species that grow in them, is crucial to making sure they and the wildlife they support can survive in the face of climate change. Restoring these ancient woodlands can also play a role in tackling climate change, storing carbon and reducing run-off and flooding caused by increasingly heavy rainstorms, they argue. Efforts under way include a £38.9 million, 100-year programme by the Wildlife Trusts, funded by insurance giant Aviva, to restore 1,755 hectares (4,337 acres) of rainforest along the Atlantic coastline, from Cornwall to Scotland, including Wales, Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. The Wildlife Trusts is also taking a rainforest garden to Chelsea Flower Show, which they have announced will be rehomed at the Bristol Zoo Project after the world famous horticultural event, in an effort to raise awareness of the rare habitat. Tara Cummins, co-ordinator of the Aviva temperate rainforest programme at the Wildlife Trusts, which is working with local and national wildlife trusts to deliver the scheme, said: 'The aim is to go beyond traditional habitat restoration, creating entirely new rainforest.' Ms Cummins said temperate rainforests needed 'incredibly specific conditions to grow', with steady temperatures and a good level of rainfall. But she said: 'With climate change those conditions are found in less and less areas.' So expanding the habitat – and linking up with existing patches of rainforest – is key to ensure the woods and their wildlife can survive the changing climate. The programme comes at a time of debate over the use of land, with pressure for food security, development, nature restoration, climate targets and energy. But Ms Cummins said the scheme was targeting only land that was not valuable for food production, such as heavily degraded land, which had been sitting on the market for several years. And she said: 'Restoring these habitats and wild places is critical for climate change, which is also critical for guaranteeing food security,' with the woodlands storing carbon and slowing the flow of water to curb flooding. The programme has nine sites so far, with seven locations already announced, including Skiddaw in Cumbria, which will eventually look to plant 300,000 trees over 270 hectares and restore around 400 hectares of blanket bog. Elsewhere, Creg y Cowin, on the Isle of Man, was the first site to plant trees in the programme. And in Devon, more than 7,000 trees have been planted at Bowden Pillars on the edges of the Dart river valley this winter, to create new rainforest close to existing examples of the ancient wooded landscape. Not far away, a temperate rainforest nature reserve in the Dart Valley managed by Devon Wildlife Trust shows how rich the habitat can be. Even in early spring before the trees come into leaf, the woodlands hugging the hills around the Dart are a bright green, with rocks, tree trunks and branches festooned with mosses, liverworts and ferns and an array of lichen. The river is home to rare brown trout and otters, while birds including red start, pied flycatchers and red-listed lesser spotted woodpeckers are also found here, along with adders, hazel dormice and common lizards. Pine martens have been reintroduced in the area, and it is one of only a handful of sites that is home to the blue ground beetle. Peter Burgess, director of nature recovery at Devon Wildlife Trust, said temperate rainforest such as in the Dart valley is 'the jewel in the crown of habitats we've got in the country, but they're so much smaller, a pale shadow of their former selves'. He said there was a need for a critical mass of rainforest to create healthy habitat in the face of recent severe droughts and damaging floods, and future predictions that these will worsen. 'Scale is so important,' he said, with larger and more complex woodlands more resilient and more likely to return to health than smaller, isolated patches, while rare and threatened wildlife would be able to find niches in larger woods to better weather climate-driven weather extremes. 'The precious and fragile areas which remain need to be increased in size, their condition improved, and fragmented woodlands joined up to ensure they are resilient and can thrive long into the future,' he said. The rainforest project is part of a £100 million programme by Aviva of projects in UK and Ireland using nature to tackle climate change and it is expected to remove 800,000 tonnes of emissions over 100 years. Claudine Blamey, chief sustainability officer with Aviva, said: 'This seemed like an amazing project to actually reinstate temperate rainforests across the west side of the UK, and to bring back that diversity that isn't there, such an important biodiversity, that the UK will benefit from as climate starts to change, as we start to see more and more impacts from climate change.' She said it was 'logic' as an insurance company to understand the role nature could play in protecting habitats, homes, areas and communities, and to use it to help with the worsening impacts of climate change. Natural solutions such as restoring habitat could be part of the solution to issues such as flooding, she said.
Wales Online
23-04-2025
- Wales Online
Brilliant zoo less than an hour from Cardiff that will be quieter this Easter holidays
Brilliant zoo less than an hour from Cardiff that will be quieter this Easter holidays The Bristol Zoo Project in the south west is a wildlife park that focuses on protecting threatened habitats on our doorsteps and around the globe, and it's a wonderful place to visit this Easter holidays Two young male wolves at The Wild Place Project in Bristol (Image: Getty Images ) While the iconic Bristol Zoo may be a thing of the past, there's still a fantastic place to visit across the Severn where you can see stunning animals and have a great time. The Bristol Zoo Project, previously known as The Wild Place Project, was launched by the Bristol Zoological Society in 2013. It's a wildlife park with a mission to protect threatened habitats both locally and globally. Work is set to begin at the BZP at Blackhorse Hill in Bristol to transform it into a new conservation zoo featuring immersive animal habitats. This zoo safeguards endangered habitats close to home, like British woodland, as well as those further afield in places like Madagascar, Cameroon, and the Congo. Article continues below It is worth the visit, especially during the Easter holiday and even more so this week as most pupils in England have now gone back to school and therefore the site will potentially be less busy than it has been over the last week and a bit quieter than Welsh attractions. At the Project, you'll encounter European brown bears in the Bear Wood, cohabiting with European grey wolves, Eurasian lynxes, and wolverines. You can also visit the Madagascan village, which houses mongoose lemurs, ring-tailed lemurs, white-belted ruffed lemurs, and our Alaotran gentle lemurs. A four-month-old Lynx kitten explores its home in the Bear Wood exhibit (Image: PA ) The Benoue National Park, a replica of the wilds of Cameroon, Africa, is home to giraffes, cheetahs and zebras. Last spring, Bristol Zoo Project welcomed a new addition - a male red panda named Nilo. Visitors can watch him acclimate to his custom-built habitat. During the spring and summer of 2024, a brand-new trail was introduced. The We're Going on a Bear Hunt trail brings the award-winning animation to life. Based on the beloved children's picture book, it features themed installations that invite visitors to follow the book's characters' journey, braving the elements and recreating the family's adventure at the story's core. We're Going on a Bear Hunt trail at the Bristol Zoo Project (Image: Bristol Zoo Project ) The trail's launch coincided with the fifth anniversary of the opening of Bristol Zoo Project's award-winning Bear Wood. Here, four European brown bears coexist with wolves, lynxes and wolverines. The exhibit narrates the history of British woodland from 8,000 BC to the present day. It meanders through 7.5 acres of ancient woodland on elevated treetop walkways. Visitors can step back in time and observe its inhabitants – all native British species lost over time, now reintroduced in one spectacular immersive experience. The giraffes at the Wild Place Project (Image: PA ) Aside from spotting wildlife, there's a plethora of activities to keep the whole family entertained. These include several outdoor play areas, a giant bird's nest, and the Barefoot Trail where children can experience different habitats under their feet. There's also a climbing wall and a giant maze - plenty to enjoy. The Bristol Zoo Project embarked on a new phase of redevelopment last spring, with the creation of a Central African Forest habitat. It became home to the zoo's existing troop of Critically Endangered western lowland gorillas, who were joined by Endangered cherry-crowned mangabeys, Critically Endangered slender-snouted crocodiles, Endangered African grey parrots and several extremely threatened species of West African freshwater fish. The site went through renovations last year (Image: Bristol Zoo Gardens ) For all the latest on the BZP and to book tickets, click here. The Bristol Zoological Society has plans for the site stretching to 2035. At the 136-acre Bristol Zoo Project site, they aim to create an immersive experience where visitors and animals are enveloped in the natural landscape. In the coming years, Bristol Zoological Society plans to transform into an inspiring visitor attraction where approximately 80% of species will be connected to our global conservation efforts, living in environments that closely mirror their natural habitats. The society's former site at Bristol Zoo Gardens in Clifton is set to be sold off to secure the future of the organisation. Article continues below
