Qualla: Chester Zoo https://qualla.com/chester-zoo en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Chester Zoo https://qualla.com/chester-zoo Chester Zoo: Introduction https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit Neil Turner from Sowerby Bridge, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nobody knew, in 1956, whether chimpanzees could swim. When Chester Zoo released its troop onto a cluster of grassy islands separated from visitors by twelve feet of water, the keepers were guessing. It turned out chimps cannot swim, and the islands became one of the most photographed enclosures in British zoo history. That gamble was characteristic of the man who built the place. George Mottershead had returned from the First World War in a wheelchair, and he had decided, against the medical and architectural orthodoxies of his time, to make a zoo without bars.

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Image: Neil Turner from Sowerby Bridge, United Kingdom | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Chester Zoo: The Boy and the Lizards https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit Anthony Appleyard at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Mottershead's family ran a market garden in Shavington, near Crewe, and exotic plants kept arriving with stowaway lizards and insects tucked into the soil. The boy collected them. A trip to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester in 1903 lit the rest of the fuse. He read Carl Hagenbeck, the ...

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Image: Anthony Appleyard at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-the-boy-and-the-lizards.mp3 0:06 2 full Chester Zoo: Moats Instead of Bars https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Smurrayinchester assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Hagenbeck's moat principle had been used elsewhere, but never as systematically as at Chester. Mottershead extended it to species the German had never tried, including those chimpanzees on their water-ringed islands. The chimps became a centrepiece. The zoo grew, and so did the p...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Smurrayinchester assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-moats-instead-of-bars.mp3 0:06 3 full Chester Zoo: Two Million Through the Gate https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. By 2019, Chester Zoo was drawing more than two million visitors a year, making it the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain. Forbes called it one of the fifteen best zoos in the world. TripAdvisor users have repeatedly named it the best in the UK and among the top three glo...

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Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-two-million-through-the-gate.mp3 0:06 4 full Chester Zoo: The Quiet Work of Saving Species https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit Steve Wilson - over 6 million views Thanks !! from Chester, UK, CC BY 2.0. Behind the visitor paths, Chester runs one of Europe's most ambitious conservation breeding programmes. At the end of 2007, more than half the species at the zoo appeared on the IUCN Red List, and 155 were classified as threatened. The zoo manages international studbooks for ten ...

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Image: Steve Wilson - over 6 million views Thanks !! from Chester, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-the-quiet-work-of-saving-species.mp3 0:06 5 full Chester Zoo: Walking the Bridleway https://qualla.com/chester-zoo/ Photo credit Anthony Appleyard (talk), Public domain. Flag Lane, the public bridleway, still bisects the zoo. The original Elephants' Bridge carried zoo vehicles between halves, and Bats' Bridge, opened in 2008, lets pedestrians and mobility scooters follow. The land beyond the public area grows food for the herbivores. In 2025 the ...

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Image: Anthony Appleyard (talk) | Public domain

]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/y/chester-zoo-wp/gcmy-chester-zoo-walking-the-bridleway.mp3 0:06 6 full