On February 25th one of our lovely Bactrian Camels Hetty turned 5 years old. She celebrated her birthday with Jessie and our male Khan…

We are pleased to announce that Flamingo Land has been awarded a World Association of Zoos and Aquariums Nature Grant. The money we have been awarded will allow us to run a wildlife holiday club for holiday village guests, day visitors and crucially the local community.

We are celebrating the first birthday of our two youngest otters here at Flamingo Land. On the 4th of February our two female Otters called Bear and Fen enjoyed turning 1 in style by having a very special Otter cake! They were joined by their parents Ruby and Noodles as well as their 2 year old sisters Beatrix, Nerina and

You may have noticed over Christmas we have two lovely Reindeer here at Flamingo Land, Esker the female and her brother Gunter. However Gunter did not have his antlers over Christmas but they are now making a comeback! Reindeer antlers fall off annually and then grow back again even bigger every year. Antlers are covered in a network of blood vessels and have a special type of fur called velvet. This is the fastest growing tissue in the whole world with Gunter’s growing up to half an inch every single day!

For this week’s view from the zoo we are going to celebrate an awareness day for one of the most popular species here at Flamingo Land. Saturday the 20th of January is Penguin Awareness Day and here at Flamingo Land we are lucky to have a colony of twenty-two Humboldt Penguins.

Here at Flamingo Land we are very lucky to have both Black Rhinoceros as well as White Rhinoceros and this week we will be letting you know the differences between the two species. We have four Black Rhinos, one 24 year old male called Baringo and our three females: Olmoti who’s 3, Chanua who’s 5 and Samira who’s 16. We also have our two young male White Rhinos called Bruce and Mabaso who are 2 and 3.

Make sure you see our pair of zebras here at Flamingo Land. We have a female called Vendela, who is 10, while her partner, our male is called Guiness and he is 11. The zebras at Flamingo Land are all Grant’s zebras, which are the smallest subspecies of plains zebra. In the wild these are found in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. They can be found in grassland and savannah woodland. Grant’s zebras have vertical stripes at the front, horizontal stripes on their back legs and diagonal s

tripes in between. Every zebra has a slightly different pattern, so their stripes can be used to identify individuals.

Take a walk through our Lemur enclosure this winter for the chance to see our ring tailed lemurs up close. Here at Flamingo Land we have a troop of 14 females lead by our oldest and most dominant female – Ruth.

One of the more festive animals to see at the zoo is of course our Penguins. Here at Flamingo Land we have a colony of twenty-two Humboldt Penguins. Penguins tend to be associated with very cold climates however our species come from the Pacific coastline of Chile and Peru. This means they are more adapted to a hot climate as opposed to the snow that has been falling upon North Yorkshire in recent weeks! They can still be seen swimming around in their pool but some may prefer to stay inside within their nest boxes.

One of the snakes that was previously housed in our Education Centre has moved over to Reptile River to be put on display. Edmund is a 16-year-old western black rat snake, the move means that he has lots more space to adventure and explore around in Reptile River – he is now housed next the Burmese python and shares his vivarium with our Blood Python named Fluffy! They are both getting on very well and often sleep next to one or another.

Christmas is on its way and in preparation Flamingo Land has welcomed its very own reindeer.

It has been a busy year for Flamingo Land’s, Tanzanian based, Udzungwa Forest Project (UFP). We are excited to report that there have been many successes.

This week we will be letting you know how we look after our very cute Red Pandas and the best time for you to see them when you visit us! We have two Red Pandas here at Flamingo Land called Tai Jang our female who is 5 and our male Bai Jiao who is also 5. We train our red pandas every day, encouraging them to come down from the trees, place their nose against our target stick then be hand fed a reward by our keepers. We do this every day generally around half one which is the best time for our public to see our pandas in action. This allows us to do use the target stick to guide them around the enclosure, onto scales and into crates should we need to move them anywhere. Target training is very important for health checks and weighing animals. They both weigh around 5 kilograms. Females tend to be more confident and Tai Jang regularly comes down, touches the target stick with her nose and received a reward. This training technique is called positive reinforcement and can be used for a whole range of species.

If you have ever visited Flamingo Land you may have noticed we have free ranging peafowl in our park. They have recently gone through their breeding season and have produced multiple young. These can be seen following their mums around and look like mini versions of them! The peafowl are very friendly which is why we are able to allow them to wander around the park and not keep them within an enclosure.

As Halloween brings another fantastic season for Flamingo Land’s Theme Park to an end, we have been distributing the remaining pumpkins to our animals. And, although the majority of our rides are now closed, visitors can still enjoy our award-winning animal collection throughout the months to come, with admission at a reduced winter rate.

At Flamingo Land, we have been very busy with Halloween activities! One which was on offer to the visitors was to carve a pumpkin. This proved to be a very popular family activity as both adults and children were able to get involved. We found that for a lot of adults it was the first time for them carving a pumpkin! Once the visitors had carved the pumpkin they could either take the pumpkin home with them or leave it here for us to give to the animals. Many of our guests staying at the Holiday Village decided to take theirs with them to decorate their caravans and log cabins.

It has been a very exciting week here at flamingo land as we have some new Australian additions here at the zoo. Our Wallaby Walkway has been undergoing some new developments as six yellow-footed rock wallabies have been introduced to the enclosure.

For this week’s view from the zoo we will be celebrating international zookeeper day! Every October 4th is the recognition of the huge contribution zookeepers make to the care and conservation of all species great and small.

Here at Flamingo Land we do have creatures that are all shapes and sizes. One of our more scary and hairy residents is our Chilean Rose Tarantula with the lovely name – Talula. She is 13 years old and has been with us for almost her entire life and here at the zoo she can live up to 20 years!

The 22nd September every year is World Rhino Day. It is a day to raise awareness on all 5 species of rhinoceros and the threats they face in the wild. There are 2 African species including the white and black rhino, along with 3 Asian species including the Indian, Javan and Sumatran rhino.