Hello, I am Taliya and I am 12 years old. I hope you like my first junior journalist report from WWP.
Today, I went the zoo but not just any zoo. I was able to go my favourite zoo – Wingham Wildlife Park. There are so many reasons I love this park. There are things for all the family to be able to have fun. Whether your 6 months or 99+ you will be able to have a great time at WWP, lots of rare and exotic animals and it is a wonderful day out for everyone.
First, we went to see the chimpanzees. My younger siblings and I were laughing so much watching them! The baby (Elizabeth) was being cheeky when we were all watching. She picked up a stick off the floor of the enclosure and went over to another of the chimpanzees and hit them with it. This caused the other Chimp to chase her up the side of the enclosure but then they gave up and went back to lay down again. Then being really cheeky, Elizabeth came back and hit him again and the chase was repeated- this is like it can be with my siblings sometimes! Everyone who was watching was laughing.
After we had seen the chimpanzees, we had a look at Sid and Nocco. In typical sloth style, they were both sleeping so we could not see them too well, but I enjoyed it anyway as sloths are one of my favourite animals. We looked at the other smaller monkeys upstairs in the chimp house then we set off outside.
To our surprise when we got outside, we saw something we never knew happened at WWP – A PENGUIN WALK! We thought this was so cool, as they ended up being right by our feet! I have never got that close to a penguin before! Pingu was so cute and well behaved following the keepers, the other two Penguins however, took a detour through all the benches and went by people’s feet! (We now know this takes place every day at 10.15 except in winter! Try to catch it if you can!)
We then set off into the park more to find the Big Cats. As we walked around, we saw Cheetahs, Jaguars, Pumas, and Wildcats. They were all so huge and looked fierce (in a cute sort of way!) Then we spotted a Tiger laying on the highest platform the enclosure. Blade looked so relaxed, asleep on the top of his climbing frame. We watched him for a while, when he woke up, he was looking around his enclosure from his spot. Sometimes it felt like he was watching and looking right at us!
Next, we went to see the Red Pandas. We were so excited to come back after we heard Mai and Kai had a baby Red Panda, for now known as Croissant. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the baby, but we did enjoy watching Kai strutting around the enclosure as it was near their feeding time. He then kept climbing the tree, then coming back again to see if food had arrived! Every time we come, we love watching the Mai and Kai, especially with how graceful they are moving around their enclosure, jumping from beam to beam and through the trees.
Once we had finished watching there, we went along to the enclosure next door to see and feed the Meerkats (A pot of food for them costs £2 from the shop at the entrance, but buy it early as we forgot before and it runs out quickly!) It was a wonderful thing to do as we had a great chance to encourage over all they baby Meerkats (who were only born on the 8th of June 2023). They were so small, but they were extremely fast. They were coming right up to the glass of the enclosure. The number of Meerkats that came up close to us when they noticed we had food was amazing.
The highlight of my day… I fell in love with the Moon Bears! They are so beautiful and they moved so elegantly. Baloo and Mika were both lounging around or on top of their climbing frame. The keepers gave Mika some fruit through their cage, but Baloo was obviously too comfortable (relaxing on top of the climbing frame) in the sun and was not interested! My brother and I loved watching them so much we decided to sit on the bench by their enclosure so we could watch them while we had our lunch!
During our visit we saw so much more including the dinosaur walk, wallabies, goats, giraffes, giant tortoise, parrots, reptiles and so much I wish I had time to write about them all, but I will save that for my next blog.
