A joyous puppet show inviting people of all ages to join the conversation about animal conservation.
After what has been a strange year for education and the arts industry, Jasmine Orchard and Lucia d’Inverno are as determined as ever to use theatre to educate and entertain. Combining their experience as professional performers with their work as mentors and facilitators of young people, this company designs their work to be engaging and accessible to children and their grownups. Scarlet Oak Theatre are bringing their new show to The Exeter Phoenix as part of Exeter Fringe...
Ingenious aquarists at Living Coasts, Torquay’s coastal zoo and aquarium, have trained strange fish to help clean their tank of a naturally-occurring pest.
Filefish, or leatherjackets, have been introduced into the charity zoo’s large stingray tank to help control an invasive anemone.
Aquarist Tom Fielding: “Aiptasia is a common temperate and tropical sea anemone. It comes in through our filtration system when seawater is drawn from the Bay. It’s regarded as a pest in saltwater aquariums because it can multiply rapidly and compete for food and space and occasionally even...
Wild Planet Trust is the Devon-based charity that runs Paignton Zoo, Living Coasts in Torquay and Newquay Zoo in Cornwall, plus several nature reserves in Devon. While 2019 was not a great year for the charity, there are, says Trust boss Simon Tonge, some reasons for optimism:
“Last year was not the best for visitor numbers, though we still saw 700,000 people come to our three zoo sites. And it was the end of an era – Duchess, the last elephant in the South West of England, died.
“On the plus side, 2019 saw the lifting of TB restrictions at Paignton Zoo. Although it has...
Paignton Zoo is sad to announce that senior male lion Lucifer has had to be put to sleep.
Zoo spokesperson Phil Knowling: “Lucifer was 17 years old, so he was a good age for an Asiatic lion. He was, like a lot of us, showing signs of wear and tear on his body. He had some weakness and ataxia – that’s wobbliness in his hind limbs – he would stagger occasionally, especially when going up and down steps, and often stumble.”
Senior mammal keeper Helen Neighbour worked closely with Lucifer: “He was a lovely male lion – in that he was grumpy and bad tempered, but not too much. He...
Animals at Paignton Zoo will be getting their own festive dinners this Christmas – but you may not find them quite as appetising as your own…
So what’s on the menu? Well, the big cats could get a whole turkey, complete with feathers and entrails. Curator of Mammals Lisa Britton said: “It’s all good roughage, the bones, everything. It’s the sort of carcass they’d be eating in the wild.”
Ferocious carnivores tearing into meat may or may not remind you of your own Christmas lunch.
Meanwhile, Alfie Junior the Southern cassowary has a Christmas dinner, too – including...
They say you shouldn’t play with your food – but at Living Coasts this Christmas, that’s exactly what kids are being encouraged to do.
The coastal zoo’s Breakfast with Santa event features food, presents – and penguins.
Living Coasts spokesperson Phil Knowling said: “Children get a pancake to decorate. They can choose from things like banana, strawberries, chocolate drops, cream and syrup – they can draw a snowman or a penguin or Santa Claus himself – or they can just pile it all on and eat it!”
Santa will personally give every child a present, and then – as this is...
Paignton Zoo has welcomed a new species – the wonderfully-named gentle lemur. There’s more than a little of the teddy bear about them, with their thick, grey-brown fur and beady amber eyes. The babies are said to be especially cute – and the zoo certainly hopes to see babies in due course.
The gentle lemur – more correctly, the Alaotran gentle lemur - is the only primate that lives entirely in marshy habitat. In the wild it can be found in reed beds around Lake Alaotra, in north east Madagascar.
But why the name? Are they really gentle? It depends who you ask. Gentle lemurs...
We often reach for a heat pack to ease aches and pains, with maybe a bit of a massage if we’re lucky. This is exactly the treatment 35-year-old Sophie is getting right now. The only difference is – she’s a giant tortoise.
Paignton Zoo’s Aldabra giant tortoise Sophie weighs 106 kilos, 233 pounds or 16 stones. She’s one of six confiscated by Customs from an illegal importation and handed to Paignton Zoo for safe keeping in 1986. Individuals can live for 200 years. She could be the first giant tortoise ever to receive this sort of treatment.
Paignton Zoo bird keeper Lisa Jones freely admits that she has an interest that borders on obsession. She’s fascinated by feathers.
“During the summer months, lots of birds at Paignton Zoo start to moult… I think feathers are among the natural world’s most incredible adaptations. While I was cleaning out the Ural owls, who are moulting heavily now, I wondered if anyone else would be as interested in feathers as me!”
It turns out, yes. Feathers are the often overlooked wonders of nature. We might admire a bird, but do we stop to ask what feathers are, why they are like they...
England’s chances in the Rugby World Cup would be greatly improved if they had this chap in the line-up.
Male Western lowland gorilla Pertinax lives at Paignton Zoo in Devon. He‘s around 6 feet from head to toe – modest for a professional rugby player these days, but he weighs in at a hefty 190 kilos - and it’s pretty much all muscle. At 37 he’s a bit of a senior now, but even the All Blacks might think twice about tackling him…
Impressively, this strapping lad follows a strict vegetarian diet that features peppers, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beetroot, kale, leeks,...
