Qualla: Bristol Zoo

Bristol Zoo: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Immanuel Giel, Public domain. There is a YouTuber called CGP Grey who makes nerdy explainer videos watched by millions, and somewhere in Bristol Zoo's African penguin colony there was, until 2017, a small black-and-white bird named after him. He was a real penguin. He had been adopted by Grey's listeners. When he died, the news made it onto the podcast he was named for. This is the kind of zoo Bristol was: a Victorian walled garden in Clifton, sandwiched between Brunel's Suspension Bridge and one of England's grandest public schools, that took itself seriously enough to fight for the survival of Madeiran land snails and unseriously enough to name a penguin after an internet pseudonym.

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Image: Immanuel Giel | Public domain

Bristol Zoo: Opened by Subscription, 1836

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the Bristol, Clifton and West of England Zoological Society opened its gates in 1836, the institution was just twelve years younger than London Zoo and ahead of every other provincial city in Britain. The site was a deliberate choice: a sloping plot on Clifton Down, between ...

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Image: Emőke Dénes | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bristol Zoo: Breeding Firsts

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geof Sheppard, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bristol's small footprint forced ingenuity. In 1934 the zoo recorded the first chimpanzee born in Europe. In 1953 it managed the first squirrel monkey born in captivity anywhere. In 1958 came the first black rhino born in Britain. These were not stunts. They were the leading edge...

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Image: Geof Sheppard | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bristol Zoo: The Quiet Conservationists

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. Behind the family attraction was a serious institution. The Bristol Zoological Society partnered with Ape Action Africa to rescue primates in Cameroon. It helped reintroduce water voles and white-clawed crayfish to southern English rivers. In 2021 it joined a captive-breeding pro...

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Image: Simon Cobb | CC0

Bristol Zoo: Closing the Gates

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Cobb, CC0. On 27 November 2020 the society announced what staff had quietly known for years: after 186 years in Clifton, the zoo would close. Land prices in central Bristol had become absurd. The Wild Place Project, a larger sister site near the M5 motorway opened in 2013, would absorb the ...

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Image: Simon Cobb | CC0