Bristol Zoo Project

Despite it being a chilly, rainy day, we were still able to fully enjoy the Bristol Zoo Project (2^nd February 2024). It was very wheelchair-accessible which was good considering I can’t walk far at all. We saw giraffes, geladas, lemurs, birds, cheetah, pygmy goats and wolverines.

 

The giraffes were my highlight.

One had very thin cream channels between its large dark patches of sharply cornered and well-defined shapes: I correctly identified that as a reticulated giraffe. The other two giraffes, whilst being of this same variety, had different colours, bigger channels, and smaller patches of indistinct blobs. Due to this, I incorrectly identified them as Rothschild’s giraffes.

To demonstrate the giraffe’s camouflage, the person giving the talk held out a photo to different groups of people to see if they could find it within the count of five. She came specifically to my level in the wheelchair which was really thoughtful. I found the giraffe quicker than everyone else. I mean, it wasn’t a competition, but if it were…

During the talk, there was another member of staff. At one point, they both put on a giraffe hand puppet and dramatically acted out ‘necking’, where male giraffes hit each other with their heads for play or mating rights. That was unexpected entertainment. They mentioned that, because males necked, the top of their ossicones go bald whereas female giraffes have hair.

They were a trio of boys. I’d never noticed how unique their scent was before. (Thankfully there was no hint of faeces). I got quite emotional and only just managed not to cry.

 

Geladas. Wow.

When I saw the silhouette of a gelada on the zoo’s map, I was utterly stunned. I had no idea there were any geladas in captivity! Considering they live in the largely-inaccessible Ethiopian Highlands, and the fact most people don’t know they exist, I never thought I’d ever see one in real life.

The walls of the indoor enclosures were stunning. They’d been painted in the beautiful traditional Ethiopian style. All other animal’s indoor enclosures had bare walls so to see these blares of colours took me by surprise. (The fact it was a gloomy rainy day, the bright colours were even more impactful.)

When we first got to the geladas, it was under a canopy. The only gelada fully visible was on a climbing frame with its back to us. It would shuffle around to face us but before you could take a photo it swivelled its back to us! So shy. Luckily when we went around the corner and saw the rest of the enclosure, there were many more visible geladas.

 

Most of the lemurs stayed indoors.

            The blue-eyed lemurs were beautiful. The male was completely black whereas the female was a rich brown. They quacked like ducks. That was so unexpected that I couldn’t stop laughing for a good while.

Just one ring-tailed lemur was outside, even if it was sat as close to indoors as possible. Its eyes were so much more vivid orange in real life than they are on documentaries, almost like they had two mini-satsumas sitting in their skulls. Naturally I wanted to take a photo of this, but considering the quality of my phone compared with state-of-the-art filming equipment, I couldn’t capture the vividness.

 

There was so much going on.

The birds were so noisy. Their squeaking was adorable but with tens of birds doing it constantly, it was rather obnoxious.

            The cheetahs were great. Even when they were pacing slowly, they were too fast for me to take a photo! They had tiny, tiny dots on their coat as opposed to spots. They were northeastern cheetahs, if I remember correctly. In zoos and documentaries, it’s usually cheetahs from the Serengeti or southern Africa that we see. Getting to see another subspecies, especially in real life, of cheetah was a great experience.

            Near the end of our trip, we saw pygmy goats. I’ve seen pygmy goats that were much smaller and I know they were adults because they had even smaller goats suckling on their udders. Although, there are many varieties of ‘normal-sized’ goats so there’s no reason why there can’t be many varieties of pygmy goats. Nevertheless, I love goats.

 

The woodland walk on a raised walkway among the trees was fantastic. It gave the impression that the predators were in the wild and we were seeing them in their natural habitat. It gave facts about woodland cover in the UK over time and when each of these animals went extinct on Great Britain.

The wolves and lynxes weren’t visible. The bears weren’t out in their enclosure because it’s winter so they were hibernating (obviously); there was, however, a bear cam so we could see them cuddled up together. The others had no inside enclosures that the public could see into. Whilst this was disappointing from a guest point of view, it fit the impression of being in the wild.

We did, however, see the wolverines. I thought they were solitary yet there was a group of at least three, though perhaps that was a mother with her children. They were my first in-person wolverine sighting! Wolverines exclusively live in cold habitats so this chilly English day would have been no problem for them.

There were buttons along the woodland walk that made sounds. One was the sound of a snail munching on food; much to my disappointment, this was the only button not working. Now I’m very curious to know what that sounds like!

At the lowest point of the walk was an open space with facts about insects. There were also thousands of insects flying in the air so the facts were well-placed. Being the closest place to the forest floor, it was no wonder it had the most insects. So this was great: the visitors could enjoy the forest walk without getting constantly annoyed by insects the whole way.

 

The Bristol Zoo Project was a thoroughly enjoyable day. There was a great variety of animals. They were of healthy weights and lived in good-sized enclosures. The staff were so helpful, opening gates and doors for us and being cheerful whenever speaking. They were enthusiastic despite the rainy day. For me as someone who’s largely housebound, this was a truly special day at a truly special place.