On this date in 1931 Whipsnade Zoo opened in Bedfordshire. 10 things you might not know about Whipsnade Zoo:
It is owned by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), which also owns London Zoo. The Zoological Society of London was founded in 1826 by Sir Stamford Raffles with the aim of promoting the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats.
Whipsnade was the brainchild of Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell who visited the Bronx Zoo in New York and was inspired to create something similar in the UK.
It’s the largest zoo in Europe at 600 acres (2.4 km2). Over 3,600 animals live there, representing more than 200 different species.
It has helped return species to the wild which have become extinct in their original habitat, including Przewalski's horse, the last remaining wild horse which lived in grasslands of Mongolia, Russia and China. Whipsnade was one of several zoos which worked together to breed a new population and reintroduce them to China.
It was the first zoo to introduce a drive through safari park.
During the Second World War, animals from London Zoo were evacuated here to escape the Blitz. An air raid lookout post was established where the Viewpoint Kitchen and Deli stands today (allegedly you can see four counties on a clear day, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Northamptonshire). The famous chalk lion was covered up so it couldn’t be a marker for enemy bombers. Unfortunately the zoo didn’t escape the bombs completely. 41 bombs fell on the Zoo, thought to have been intended for the nearby industrial towns of Luton or Dunstable, killing a spur-winged goose and a baby Giraffe. The craters made by the bombs are still there: they were left to fill with water and become lakes and ponds for the animals.
David Attenborough, Steve Buchanan and Harry Hill have all filmed at the Zoo. However, the red pandas became stars when the BBC spent time filming them to help create Lyra’s daemon Pantalaimon in His Dark Materials when he took on a Red Panda form.
In the middle of the central lawn stands a huge fig tree which is over 200 years old.
The first animals arrived at the park in 1928, including two Lady Amherst's Pheasants, a golden pheasant, and five red junglefowl.
In 1932 a defunct travelling menagerie sold its animals to the zoo and considerably boosted the collection. Some of the larger animals walked to the zoo from Dunstable station.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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