Chester Zoo a great day out for wildlife lovers

If you are visiting Chester and a wildlife lover I can thoroughly recommend Chester Zoo, it is one of the largest zoos in the UK and was voted the third world's best zoo by TripAdvisor, the zoo has over 20,000 animals.

Chester Zoo is well known for their conservation work, the Zoo's conservation organisation Act for Wildlife fund projects in the UK and overseas including teaching people how to live with elephants in their natural habitat. Due to things such as habitat loss, poaching and conflict with humans elephants are critcally endangered.  Everyday 100 elephants loose their lives because there is still a demand for ivory tusks which is very sad and shocking. These are some of the reasons why these special mammals could become extinct. The EU have recently confirmed elephants could be extinct in only 25 years because of the ivory trade.  One of the Act for Wildlife's campaigns is We Never Forget in memory of Bala and Hari from Chester Zoo who unfortunately passed away from the Elephant Endotheliotropic Herpes Virus, I was so saddened to read this as I had grown so fond of these 2 elephants, I had photographed them so any times as they were such playful characters. The virus affects young elephants around the world. Through the campaign they are funding research to try and help elephants in zoos and the wild so less are affected by this devastating disease. In the future they hope to find a cure. For more information on Chester Zoo and their conservation projects please visit Act For Wildlife's website www.actforwildlife.org.uk
The past few years I have got attached to the HI Way Elephant Family, I could spend all day with them especially the younger elephants who have such playful characters and are always interacting together. One of the elephant calves Nandita is one of my favourite elephants, she has such a lovely nature and always looks after the youngest elephant in the herd.

In August 2016 Chester Zoo opened their islands that are made up of six South East Asian Islands which are home to a variety of animals including Sumatran Tigers, Gibbonsm Orangutans and Tropical Birds. For any Orangutan lovers you can visit them on the islands. The keepers leave hammocks in the enclosure as it encourages a natural behaviour the orangutans would do in the wild, whilst I was watching them they used hammocks for shelter. Chester Zoo is a great place to visit for seeing Orangutans in a beautiful setting and if you would like to see the orangutans up close you can take a boat ride from the island.

If you are travelling by public transport the zoo is easy to get to, there are buses opposite Chester station that you take you directly to the zoo entrance. The X8 Bus is every hour and the last bus leaves the zoo 30 minutes before closing. Entry tickets are £28.00 on the door, if you book them online they are cheaper and £22.00 For more details visit Chester Zoo’s website www.chesterzoo.org