South Lakes Safari Zoo (Cumbria Zoo)

Date of visit - 16/09/2024

Part of the reason we had booked our week in Cumbria, was to visit South Lakes Safari Zoo. The booking we had made at our accommodation, Brockholes Farm, included hands on experiences, of our choosing. My wife has a bit of a thing about giraffes and really wanted to feed one again, having previously done so at Colchester Zoo, we also got the chance to feed a Jaguar, a Giant Otter and a Lemur.

Anyway, getting ahead of myself. South Lakes Zoo is based near Ulverston, Cumbria. The zoo has gone through several changes of name over its 30 year existence and currently has an interesting selection of animals. As mentioned earlier, it was a chance for us to have some up close experiences that tempted us to visit.

For Little One it was another chance to see if he would interact with any of the animals that he came into contact with. He was quite happy to hold out a branch to a giraffe, but not quite so keen to be up close with a wallaby - I am not sure what he understands of the creatures he meets, as by and large he doesn't take a lot of notice, until they are in 'his space' that is.

There are quite a lot of loose wildlife around the zoo, to be fair, mainly peacocks and ducks, and of course seagulls when you are carrying out the feeding sessions.

Of note to visitors you are NOT allowed to take food into the zoo. There are several, what look like picnic areas within the zoo, but apparently visitors couldn't be trusted not to feed the animals with their pack-lunch, so the zoo have taken a zero tolerance approach - there is nothing to stop you, doing like we did, popping back to the car to have our lunch, but to be honest, it's not the same and a shame people can't be trusted!

We started off our experience entering the large aviary - not to feed birds though, but the friendly Capybara that are in the aviary with the birds. We did get a close up of the Inca Tern, which are quite majestic birds, with a very distinctive moustache. Little One was quite happy to visit the aviary, but refused to hold out a green pepper to feed the Capybara.

From the otters and Jaguar we moved on to what my wife had come for, feeding the giraffe. Face masks came off here, and we all joined in feeding these elegant creatures. Little One even joined in, if a little reluctantly at first, but he was soon happy to hold his branch out.

Unfortunately, he didn't understand that you had to hold tight onto the branch, so the giraffe could strip the leaves off with their tongue, instead having the branch pulled out of his hand, whole, but at least he joined in, which was nice for us, if not so much so for him!

After the giraffe feeding we moved on to visit the Lemurs, Wallabies, Rheas and Emu. They have a large, grassed enclosure, where normally the public walk around the path circumnavigating the grassed area, but as we were there to feed we had access to centre stage with the animals.

The Lemur were more than happy to feed out of your hand, unfortunately this was just a little bit too close for comfort for Little One though, who elected to sit this part of the feeding activity out!

Little One did get to greet a Wallaby here, but as you can see from his expression, he wasn't exactly loving the experience. We do often wonder how much of what we do gets through to him and what he remembers - if he ever meets a Wallaby again I'll let you know!

After lunch, in the car park - remember the no food onsite rule - we had a chance to feed the small colony of Meerkats. My wife was pleased to see that like the Jaguar, the Meerkats are more than a bit partial to eating bits of chick, fed to them off the end of a stick, more chick kebab than shish kebab!

From the Meerkats we had the opportunity to feed the Arctic Tern's. Well I say feed, that should really be attempt to feed, as the little blighters were happy to fly around us, as our guide attempted to coax them to grab the fish from our gloved hands. Our granddaughter did have a bit of luck, but my wife and I just ended up looking like fish versions of the Statue of Liberty!

We did also get the opportunity to feed the selection of parrots and other exotic birds in the aviary, although once again Little One dipped out here, as birds were extremely noisy when we went in - which he wasn't having any of!

We further went on to walk through a Lemur enclosure, who decided Little One's pushchair was a handy spot to sit and wait for food. We also got to feed Storks, more chicks and feed some less carnivorous ducks plain old seed!

Having pretty much fed everything feedable on our grand tour we settled to walking round what was left of the zoo, which wasn't much, as we had pretty much covered it all.

At the end of our day we reflected on our day out. The zoo isn't the biggest going, but the enclosures and animals on view all appeared quite happy with their lot. The not being able to eat onsite was a bit of pain, but popping back to the car wasn't a big issue really, specially as we had parked right outside the entrance in one of the many disabled spaces.

The feeding experiences really did make our day, getting close to some of the animals and even into some of the enclosures, was great, even if Little One wasn't that keen on some of the experiences.

Our conclusion was largely that the zoo is definitely worth a visit if you are in the area and if you can run to the cost of doing one of the feeding experiences, then definitely worth it.

Update

It has come to my attention that since compiling this day out write up that South Lakes Safari Zoo has attracted some negative media attention. Much of the information and concerns appear to be historic, with attempts to have the zoo license removed, going back to 2019, although recent undercover information has been added. This report on the BBC gives more details.

All I can say is that on the day we visited the park, all the animals we saw appeared to be well looked after, the keepers we interacted with seemed knowledgeable around the animals they were caring for. Some of the cages did look a bit dated, although there were equably a number of areas that had obviously been recently built or replaced. I can honestly say I have seen many examples of zoos or wildlife parks where I would have had more concerns - but then, to be fair, I'm not an expert.

Hopefully the zoo can allay the fears and work towards making the changes required to keep their zoo license.