Whether you are a local or you just come to visit our gorgeous city, a visit to Bristol Zoo Gardens must be on your list. You will live an adventure in an exciting animal kingdom, all set within 12 acres of beautiful gardens.
Get up close to more than 400 species of exotic, endangered and adorable animals from the four corners of the globe, whilst enjoying the award-winning gardens.
Opened in 1836 by the Bristol, Clifton and West of England Zoological Society, Bristol Zoo is the world’s oldest provincial zoo. It is a Victorian walled zoo located between Clifton Down and Clifton College, near Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge.
The zoo also has breeding firsts, including the first black rhino born in Britain in 1958, the first squirrel monkey born in captivity in 1953 and the first chimpanzee born in Europe in 1934.
With nine under cover animal houses, Bristol Zoo is a wonderful, all weather family attraction. You can see the amazing gorilla family in the unique 180 degree view gorilla house, venture into Twilight World (the first of its kind when it opened) to discover animal secrets after sunset and come face-to-face with their incredible reptiles in the Reptile house. Some other Zoo favourites include Seal & Penguin Coast, Monkey Jungle, Asiatic lions, Bug World, Meerkat Lookout and the Aquarium.
Don’t forget to visit Splash, a water-play area with streams, dams and the chance to get your toes wet. The more adventurous can have a go on the aerial ropes course, ZooRopia, and swing alongside some of the Zoo’s most popular animals – gibbons and gorillas – before flying down the zip wire.
The structure is also super-engaged in environmental projects in and out the UK
Bristol Zoo supports wildlife conservation, education and breeding programmes worldwide. For example, Bristol works with other zoos around the world to breed lemurs in captivity. Native to Madagascar, the lemurs are critically endangered because their forest habitat is being destroyed.
Bristol Zoo supports the UK/US charity Ape Action Africa, which rescues and rehabilitates primates in Cameroon, West Africa.
They also aim to get their visitors do their own part for a better environment:
“While engaging people with the natural world, we aim to inspire behaviour change in our guests and encourage people to do things that benefit the environment and wildlife.
To achieve this, we launch conservation campaigns on issues affecting biodiversity and inspire our guests to take actions which will reduce this threat. We do this by empowering guests with simple and effective behaviours which they can perform as part of their everyday lives.
Inspiring pro-environmental behaviours in our guests is a key element of Bristol Zoological Society’s Strategic Plan, and we aim to encourage behaviour change in at least 15% of our guests.”
(from their website https://www.bristolzoo.org.uk/save-wildlife/conservation-campaigns).
There are always plenty of things going on there, including educational opportunities. Their website is constantly updated and they suggest always checking their news section before visiting in order to enjoy all the daily initiatives taking place.
What are you waiting for? Go buy your tickets and get into the wild!
Sources:
https://www.bristolzoo.org.uk/ https://en.wikipedia.org/ https://visitbristol.co.uk
