Wild days in Donegal

I’ve just come back from a family holiday in County Donegal, and now I’ve come to write a review about the two zoos we visited there: Wild Ireland and Tropical World.

It was Wednesday, the 5th of August, and my parents and I had arrived at Wild Ireland, which opened back in October of last year and is home to Irish animals of both past and present. We were so lucky to visit this place in the middle of our week’s stay in Donegal, especially considering these dark times. It was damp and rainy for much of our visit, but that and the amount of visitors did little to ruin the experience, as we got to see most, if not all of the animals at the sanctuary, and we had our masks to protect ourselves. My Mum had done her back in at the start of our holiday, but she was aided by a pair of walking sticks, and Dad and I were there to take care of her the whole time.

Upon entering, the first animals we saw were a pair of red foxes getting fed, and I was lucky enough to take some decent photos of them. Around this area, there were also ferrets, a barn owl, a rabbit nursery, and an aviary with pigeons, chickens and peafowl. Continuing the one-way system, there were two enclosures with lots of guinea pigs (the first animals I saw as we were parking the car), followed by an ‘invasive species’ area with American mink, grey squirrels and common pheasant (even though the pheasant hasn’t had a detrimental effect on our ecosystem). After a while, we came to an aviary with a pair of snowy owls, followed by a larger aviary with a golden eagle named Odin. On the other side, there is a large enclosure which is home to two pairs of Eurasian cranes, two Soay sheep, domestic chickens, and a single female red deer. There was also a pair of white storks that were most likely in quarantine as they were isolated from the other animals by a metal fence under a wooden shelter.

Just around the corner from Odin’s aviary was a large island housing a group of barbary macaques, which were rescued from abusive conditions and living a much happier life here. Astonishingly, fossils of these monkeys dating back 2,500 years have been found in Ireland, but its believed that early people from the Mediterranean brought them here as pets. Next door to Odin was a smaller aviary holding a western capercaillie, probably my first time seeing the male bird since we only saw the two females at the Highland Wildlife Park last year. Next to the macaques is an enclosure with a herd of Old Irish goats, an endangered breed and the only goat originally bred in Ireland. I was also lucky enough to see my first wild boar, a female named Tory, and her striped boarlets, foraging in the soil of their enclosure. After a while, we attended the macaques’ feeding time at 11:00, followed by the otter’s feed at 11:15. I enjoyed watching the park’s single female otter, Uisce, swimming in her pool to catch the fish she was thrown.

After the otter, I passed by the wild boar to take some more pictures, including the one that you can see here. The path took me up to the lynx enclosure where I saw the park’s single lynx, Naoise, enjoying her 11:30 feed. I was able to see the wolves from behind the lynx’s fence, and that was the next stop, as the wolves had their feed at 11:45. Here, I spotted the park’s owner, Killian McLaughlin, but didn’t get a chance to talk with him. After the wolves came what are arguably the stars of Wild Ireland: the three brown bears, Donnacha, Aurnia and Rionach, who were rescued from what was literally a prison cell in Lithuania. Throughout the feed, I took a bear-sized bunch of photos of the bears, including several of Aurnia in the pool at the front of the enclosure, as my parents sat on the bench behind me. At the end of our visit, I bought an otter plush toy for myself, and a bear plush for my aunt.

The following day, Dad and I drove down to Letterkenny to visit Tropical World, which opened in 2011. First, we dropped Mum off to meet a friend at a restaurant in Buncrana. Upon arrival, we had to walk through Alcorn’s garden centre, then follow a path to the entrance to the mini zoo, with prairie dogs on one side before the entrance, and a black-and-white ruffed lemur on the other side. After entering, we first entered a rather dark room with several insects, frogs and reptiles, including panther chameleons. We then entered the tropical butterfly forest, before entering a room with several aviaries and enclosures for tortoises and other reptiles, as well as a group of pygmy marmosets. There was also a room with enclosures for meerkats and a pair of fennec foxes (these were one of the main highlights of the visit).

We were then taken back into reception area, where on our left was a door to the outdoor area. We passed by a picnic area, then another aviary, before taking the long path to another section of the zoo with Geoffroy’s marmosets, a cockatoo, horned owls, Japanese squirrels, green magpies, hornbills and blue-bellied rollers among others. A first for me was the black lemur; we saw a male (the black one) and two females (ginger-bodied with a grey face) in their house. Here, there was also an indoor ‘Jurassic Land’ area with several models of dinosaurs, as well as hippos and a Komodo dragon. There were live animals here too, in the form of turacos flying in an aviary. Aside from these models, there were several model animals throughout the zoo, including orangutans, tigers, zebras and a pair of giraffes. There was even a model elephant spraying water into a pond with a model crocodile. On our way back, we went down into another undercover area, which mostly had species of owls, as well as ring-tailed and white-fronted lemurs, and a duck pond.

I did like Tropical World, but not surprisingly, I personally preferred Wild Ireland. During our time in Donegal, we also led alpacas up a hill at the Wild Alpaca Way at Malin Head, Ireland’s most northerly point; we spent some time in Derry city and briefly saw a seal in the River Foyle; we climbed the Grianán of Aileach and looked out over much of Donegal and Derry, including both Loughs Swilly and Foyle; and we drove through Glenveagh National Park in search of wild Golden eagles. Even though we didn’t see any eagles there, we still enjoyed getting out into nature. And in spite of Mum’s aching back and the rainy weather on some days, our holiday was superb!

Link to Wild Ireland’s website: https://www.wildireland.org/

Link to Tropical World’s website: https://tropicalworld.ie/