Happy New Year to you all, let’s all hope that this year is a better year. As I write this there isn’t a lockdown so let’s hope it stays that way and look back on all that happened in 2021 instead.
Starting off 2021, was a start we didn’t think we would have. On the 4th of January, Boris Johnson announced another national lockdown which meant that we had to close our doors once again from 5th January. At this point it wasn’t at all obvious how long we would be shut for this time, and we didn’t think that we would be waiting until 12th April to welcome you back. Even with the announced plans to lessen restrictions were still not able to let you back into any indoor areas until 17th May.
The Bug Garden
The 17th May also gave us the opportunity to open our new Bug Garden and House to the public for the first time. It is a fantastic new area for the park and over the past few months the garden has been flourishing under the care of our gardener, Vanessa.
Inside the Bug House our invertebrate keeper Beth and cover staff, Lucy and Ian have been working extremely hard with all our new insects and of course our White Clawed Crayfish for them to also flourish. We are continuing to gain new species of invertebrates and have welcomed in the past few weeks some new Giant Indian Mantis’s. We have also had continued breeding success with many of our cockroaches, slugs and snails and keep your fingers crossed for the successful hatching of our Ghost Mantis female’s babies.
SWP
We also announced our decision to close our sister site, Sandwich Wildlife Park on 25th January. Due to the impact of lockdowns and closure it was no longer able to survive and have Wingham fund both parks and continue to be able to develop. This meant that for the animals at Sandwich new homes had to be found. We have welcomed some of the animals from Sandwich up at Wingham, but some have also gone off to pastures new.
Currently a few animals remain on site at Sandwich as we wait for the new developments at Wingham to finish so that they can move into their new homes.
Daily streams
Markus started off the year with continued Facebook live streams and even a 24-hour live stream on 25th March.
Fund raising has been a big part of 2021, with your ongoing support from our wish list for both animals and keepers alike. We are more than grateful for your support with gifts, comments on social media and continued visits.
New arrivals
Whilst we have had some animals leave us and go on to new homes, we have also had a lot of new arrivals in our bug house and babies born to our Galah breeding pair, Parma Wallabies, Rainbow Lorikeets, Goeldi Monkeys, two Spix Night Monkeys and Meerkats.
Also, the arrival of Colonel Tom, our male cheetah from Colchester Zoo. He has settled into his new home, and we now wait for the studbook keeper of cheetahs to give us the go ahead to allow him to go with our females.
Staff
We have also welcomed new keepers and an education officer to our teams and look forward to the exciting developments to the new reptile house and nocturnal area which are under development now.
Play area
If you haven’t seen, we also have a new outdoor play area for both toddlers and older children, plus more areas being developed for extra things to keep you occupied whilst enjoying your day out with us.
2022 will be an exciting year for the park so make sure to stay tuned with our social media pages for all the latest news and why not sign up to our monthly news letter too.
