Chester Zoo

This is definitely one of the United Kingdom’s most popular zoos, opened in 1934. We visited in August 2014, during a stay in Wales (Chester is close to the border with Wales). The elephants were the first animals we came across after entering the zoo, and we got to the feeding time as well. The zoo is likely the first place where I saw the Sulawesi babirusa, a bizarre pig with unusual tusks in the male. However, we did not get good photographs of it and it was only from a distance that we saw it. We saw giant otters and black rhinos for the first time, and I was also surprised to see a baby tapir which, if I can remember correctly, was born on the Monday of the week, we visited Chester on a Thursday. Chester is also one of the few places outside of New Zealand to see the tuatara, an unusual lizard-like reptile whose ancestors existed before the dinosaurs evolved. Unfortunately, I could not remember seeing them, and we do not have any records of tuatara from Chester. Anyway, we took a ride on the zoofari monorail, and it is said on their website that the Queen took a trip on it when she visited in 2012. Hopefully, I will get to visit again someday to try out the new Islands exhibit, based on six South-east Asian islands: Panay from the Phillipines, Papua, Sumba, Sumatra, Bali and Sulawesi where the babirusa can be found. They also now have aye-ayes, which are an unusual lemur listed as ‘Endangered’ by the IUCN. The aye-ayes can be found in Tropical realm, where the tuatara are as well.

Link to their website.