Jersey Zoo

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Another place we visited on our trip to Jersey was the Jersey zoo, run by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. This was started in 1959 by Gerald Durrell, one of my favourite authors, a pioneering conservationist and one of my childhood heroes, so we had to go there (and of course the girls always enjoy any outing which involves animals). The Durrell foundation does a lot of work with endangered species, especially from islands such as Madagascar, and has led some captive breeding and reintroduction programs. The zoo was a bit different to some other zoos or wildlife parks we have visited in that it didn’t have any of the large animals that people typically might expect – no elephants, lions, tigers, camels or rhinoceros, for example. It did have Andean spectacled bears, orang-utans and gorillas, warty pigs, macaques, howler monkeys, flamingos, lemurs and giant tortoises. All the animals have plenty of space so of course they aren’t always visible, but we did see almost all of them. Then there were a lot of smaller animals including many different lizards and frogs, various birds and a large house with fruit bats, which was probably our favourite exhibit, along with the reptile house. The only snags I suppose were that the indoor exhibits closed at 4:30, even though the zoo itself didn’t close until 6 pm. And the staff in the café were less than welcoming! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2023.