Welsh Mountain Zoo

Located in Colwyn Bay in the north of Wales, Welsh Mountain Zoo is also known as the National Zoo of Wales, being the first zoo to be opened here in 1963 by Robert Jackson, a wildlife enthusiast and naturalist. The zoo covers 37 acres and is home to more than 140 animals, including brown bears, snow leopards, red pandas and chimpanzees.

My family and I visited here in the summer of 2014, while we were staying over in Wales as we wanted to visit Chester Zoo that year. We enjoyed getting to see many of the animals, including the red pandas, and even went to a chimpanzee talk inside their house. We also went into the lemur walkthrough and enjoyed getting close to the ring-tailed lemurs (resulting in the picture at the top of this page). However, I was a bit annoyed that we left the brown bears till near the end of our visit, as I was so looking forward to seeing them, and this was the second time I had ever seen the species (after my unsuccessful attempt to photograph the bear in Munich). Nevertheless, our visit went smoothly, and concluded with lunch at the Safari Restaurant.

Although Welsh Mountain Zoo isn’t the best zoo we’ve visited in the UK, it does provide good views of the Carneddau mountains, and out to sea. I do hope to visit again some day, especially since I hope to visit Chester again due to its increasingly attractive new exhibits. The most obvious change at Welsh Mountain Zoo since our visit is the opening of the Silk Road Project, a new and improved enclosure for the zoo’s snow leopards.