Твиккросс зообағы: Приматтар мен сирек жануарлар әлемі

English animal park specialising in primates

In 1972 the zoo became a charitable trust and is renowned as a specialist primate centre with a wide variety of primates including all four types of great ape, boasting the UK's only group of bonobo. Twycross Zoo has become known for breeding primates and has recorded first UK births for thirteen different species including the bonobo, siamang, agile gibbon and woolly monkey, contributing to numerous conservation breeding programmes. In 2000, Badham and Evans co wrote Molly's Zoo, a book telling the story of the zoo's history.

Molly Badham was an expert in primates in captivity and highly regarded for her work with chimpanzees. Molly achieved many world firsts during her leadership, from breeding animals successfully through to being a founder member of the National Federation of Zoological Gardens of Great Britain and Ireland. Badham provided chimpanzees for PG Tips tea commercials (notably Mr Shifter), and one of the zoo's chimpanzees appeared in a Hammer Horror film with Peter Cushing. Chimpanzees were dressed up in clothes and trained to act like humans, even ride a bike. More recent management believed that the apes should not have been used in this way.

Conservation Way is home to a family of critically endangered Amur leopards, the world's rarest big cats. In June 2014, female Kristen gave birth to cubs Arina and Alexei after joining Twycross born male Davidoff in 2013 as part of a European Association of Zoos and Aquariums breeding programme. Endangered siamangs can also be found in Conservation Way, along with an enclosure for Chapman's zebras. In 2013, the zoo's meerkat enclosure was renovated to give them almost double the space that they had previously. Their new enclosure boasts a tall artificial termite mound upon which the meerkats like to do 'sentry duty'. Ground level windows also enable young children better views of the meerkats.

This zone is home to Humboldt penguins, pink backed pelicans and Chilean flamingos, along with the Borneo longhouse aviary. [currently closed] The Borneo Longhouse walkthrough exhibit was opened in 2007 by actor Brian Blessed and the Malaysian High Commissioner, His Excellency Datuk Abd Aziz Mohammed. The exhibit, built to replicate a traditional longhouse, provides a naturalistic environment for the birds which live there, and enables visitors to walk inside the aviary and see first hand the importance of wetland habitats throughout the world. There are also a number of non avian species to be found in the Wet and Wild zone including lowland tapirs, yellow throated martens, bush dogs and red legged seriemas. This zone is also home to three different species of owl, tortoises, Kirk's dik dik, black howler monkeys, giraffes, nyala, black rhinoceros and Sumatran tigers.

Twycross Zoo is the only zoo in the UK that is home to all four types of great ape. Kingdom of the Apes exhibits three of these, bonobos, chimps and western lowland gorillas.

Life in the Trees exhibits a number of different species of both Old and New World monkeys, including black headed spider monkeys, brown spider monkeys and De Brazza's monkeys to name just a few. Twycross Zoo has one of the largest range of gibbons in Europe and these small apes can be seen in Gibbon Forest. There are currently four different species of gibbon living here, including northern white cheeked gibbons, pileated gibbons, siamangs and agile gibbons. Gibbon Forest is also home to several smaller vivariums which house different reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates. Life in the Trees houses Bornean orangutans. In 2014, a termite mound was built in the orangutan enclosure which is used as enrichment, as the holes in the mound can be filled with various different items for the orangutans to extract using tools that they prepare from branches and twigs.

In 2021, the Gruffalo Discovery Land was opened. The area tells the tale of the Gruffalo and houses some of the animals mentioned in the story, such as owls and snakes. The area is also home to Butterfly Paradise. Butterfly Paradise is a 600 m2 walk through exhibit and was designed by Twycross Zoo staff. Visitors follow a winding path through a heavily planted setting where they can see different butterflies and witness the life cycle, from chrysalis to butterfly in the dedicated hatching cabinets. Victoria crowned pigeons and other tropical birds can also be found inside.

The free to enter Himalaya Visitor Centre was opened in 2010 and is the entrance to the zoo. The zoo's main gift shop and 300 seat restaurant is located here. The restaurant overlooks a Himalayan mountain scene which is the enclosure for a family of endangered snow leopards. Twycross Zoo's conference facilities are also found here, with the 100 capacity windows on the Wild Conference room. Windows on the Wild is used regularly for both corporate and social functions.

Twycross Zoo has its very own Nature Reserve which is free to enter. This large reserve provides a safe and secure home for native bats, birds, insects and small mammals.

Twycross Zoo is home to an award winning education department. Amongst others, the zoo holds the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge, all sessions are curriculum linked and all are designed to best engage all age groups. The zoo teaches over 15,000 school children per year in their Study Centre.

Tara, a hand reared supposedly Bengal tigress acquired from Twycross Zoo in July 1976, was trained by Billy Arjan Singh and reintroduced to the wild in Dudhwa National Park, India with the permission of India's then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in an attempt to prove the experts wrong that zoo bred hand reared tigers could never be released in the wild with success. In the 1990s, some tigers from Dhudhwa were observed which had the typical appearance of Siberian tigers: white complexion, pale fur, large head and wide stripes. With recent advances in science it was subsequently found that Siberian tigers' genes had polluted the otherwise pure Bengal tiger gene pool of Dudhwa National Park. It was proved later that Twycross Zoo had been irresponsible and maintained no breeding records, and had given India a hybrid Siberian Bengal tigress instead, although at the time, and taking into account information received regarding all of the tigers kept at Twycross Zoo, it was believed that Tara was a pure Bengal tiger at that time. Dudhwa tigers constitute about 1% of India's total wild population, but the possibility exists of this genetic pollution spreading to other tiger groups; at its worst, this could jeopardize the Bengal tiger as a distinct subspecies. With the advent of co ordinated breeding programmes for numerous species help in captivity and standardised electronic animal record keeping systems (ARKS), it is now possible to track the different subspecies that are managed and ensure that these are managed as pure subspecies. Twycross Zoo is now recognised as having a database of the animals in its care, both current and historically, that is comparable to any major zoological garden worldwide.