– How a few bad years during COVID could impact them
– Property prices skyrocketing
They had the best opportunity to cash their chips in they could see and they took it.
Clifton is the “Mayfair” of Bristol. You won’t find a property near the downs for less than a million and the Zoo couldn’t be closer. They’ll print money with this.
I do like visiting zoos and I know Chester zoo is one of the best, but I don’t buy that a lot of these zoos are for conversation. There are way too many animals in the zoos that arnt in danger or need conserving. And in many cases it should be a place where the animals are rehabilitated or trained to go back into the wild or in some sort of national park in the country they belong.
Some of the pens or enclosures are pretty small. Even the big ones in the UK, the animals must get bored being in the same 50x50m enclosure.
My local zoo, (Twycross) has a ton of monkeys and all of them looked absolutely miserable.
Do they need the permission of the public to close it?
I’m really torn about this because I grew up in Bristol and visiting the zoo was such a huge highlight of my childhood. I used to get the number 8 bus from Bristol Temple Meads with enormous excitement and it was wonderful winding through Clifton on the way and seeing all the big fancy houses. I was absolutely delighted when I discovered they had an animal with the same (very not English) name as me.
My grandfather used to stay in a hotel near the zoo back when he was travelling for work and would tell me how noisy all the animals were at night and I was fascinated at the idea of the zoo coming to life after everyone had left.
I took my own young nieces here and got to re-experience the delight and wonder again through their eyes. Family members got married there.
However the site is tiny. They were massively hampered by the location and the cost of keeping it running. They weren’t able to do their big animal conservation work which is becoming more pivotal to protecting habitats. If they can sell the site at a premium and use that money to fund their other big park I think they should. It will be sad that the place where I had so many special and joyful childhood memories is gone but happy that they are moving onto new and valuable things to help animals.
What a ridiculous complaint, tiny city centre zoos with animals in small enclosures are so far from what people rightly expect from animal conservation these days. Plus describing the new site as being ‘in south Gloucestershire’ is a bit melodramatic, it’s right next to Filton where the ‘Bristol’ arena will be, and literally on the edge of the contiguous urban spread of Bristol.
This is pure NIMBY-ism. You have to ask yourself what position/qualification “Tom Jones” in the article has, that means he is better placed to decide on how a business he is no part of should be ran. I cannot believe he thinks he even has a right to be heard by a national news reporter on this issue.
The zoo was not fit for purpose, and closing it to properly fund an out of town site was the right option. The purpose of a zoo is conservation, which was not suitable at that site. Nobody (not even the residents of clifton) have a right to have a zoo in their neighbourhood.
The quote about the suspension bridge is even more ridiculous. Firstly there is no comparison, the Zoo whilst old is not an architectural masterpiece (and some of the most notable buildings are being kept as is). And secondly the SS Great Britain/docks area is clearly the second most notable tourist attraction of Bristol.
I’m sure the workers were unhappy with the closure, it is certainly a sad thing. But it was the right thing to do.
Having read the article I can’t find any point which I would consider to be “misled”.
>”They have their ties in Bristol, they have their history in Bristol, it’s the people of Bristol that gives them their money, they have a responsibility to all of us, it’s our zoo, to find a way to keep it in Bristol.”
And again, for those at the back with the hard of hearing. It’s a private company. If you want to claim localised ownership of it, you need to own it.
7 comments
It was no secret, they simultaneously saw:
– How a few bad years during COVID could impact them
– Property prices skyrocketing
They had the best opportunity to cash their chips in they could see and they took it.
Clifton is the “Mayfair” of Bristol. You won’t find a property near the downs for less than a million and the Zoo couldn’t be closer. They’ll print money with this.
I do like visiting zoos and I know Chester zoo is one of the best, but I don’t buy that a lot of these zoos are for conversation. There are way too many animals in the zoos that arnt in danger or need conserving. And in many cases it should be a place where the animals are rehabilitated or trained to go back into the wild or in some sort of national park in the country they belong.
Some of the pens or enclosures are pretty small. Even the big ones in the UK, the animals must get bored being in the same 50x50m enclosure.
My local zoo, (Twycross) has a ton of monkeys and all of them looked absolutely miserable.
Do they need the permission of the public to close it?
I’m really torn about this because I grew up in Bristol and visiting the zoo was such a huge highlight of my childhood. I used to get the number 8 bus from Bristol Temple Meads with enormous excitement and it was wonderful winding through Clifton on the way and seeing all the big fancy houses. I was absolutely delighted when I discovered they had an animal with the same (very not English) name as me.
My grandfather used to stay in a hotel near the zoo back when he was travelling for work and would tell me how noisy all the animals were at night and I was fascinated at the idea of the zoo coming to life after everyone had left.
I took my own young nieces here and got to re-experience the delight and wonder again through their eyes. Family members got married there.
However the site is tiny. They were massively hampered by the location and the cost of keeping it running. They weren’t able to do their big animal conservation work which is becoming more pivotal to protecting habitats. If they can sell the site at a premium and use that money to fund their other big park I think they should. It will be sad that the place where I had so many special and joyful childhood memories is gone but happy that they are moving onto new and valuable things to help animals.
What a ridiculous complaint, tiny city centre zoos with animals in small enclosures are so far from what people rightly expect from animal conservation these days. Plus describing the new site as being ‘in south Gloucestershire’ is a bit melodramatic, it’s right next to Filton where the ‘Bristol’ arena will be, and literally on the edge of the contiguous urban spread of Bristol.
This is pure NIMBY-ism. You have to ask yourself what position/qualification “Tom Jones” in the article has, that means he is better placed to decide on how a business he is no part of should be ran. I cannot believe he thinks he even has a right to be heard by a national news reporter on this issue.
The zoo was not fit for purpose, and closing it to properly fund an out of town site was the right option. The purpose of a zoo is conservation, which was not suitable at that site. Nobody (not even the residents of clifton) have a right to have a zoo in their neighbourhood.
The quote about the suspension bridge is even more ridiculous. Firstly there is no comparison, the Zoo whilst old is not an architectural masterpiece (and some of the most notable buildings are being kept as is). And secondly the SS Great Britain/docks area is clearly the second most notable tourist attraction of Bristol.
I’m sure the workers were unhappy with the closure, it is certainly a sad thing. But it was the right thing to do.
Having read the article I can’t find any point which I would consider to be “misled”.
>”They have their ties in Bristol, they have their history in Bristol, it’s the people of Bristol that gives them their money, they have a responsibility to all of us, it’s our zoo, to find a way to keep it in Bristol.”
And again, for those at the back with the hard of hearing. It’s a private company. If you want to claim localised ownership of it, you need to own it.