Qualla: Welsh Mountain Zoo

Welsh Mountain Zoo: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Geoff Charles, CC BY-SA 4.0. Robert Jackson opened the Welsh Mountain Zoo on 18 May 1963 on a steep, wooded hillside above Colwyn Bay. Most zoos at the time were laid out in straight lines on flat ground; Jackson's was anything but. Visitors climb instead of stroll, looking up at the Irish Sea between the trees, then down again to find a Bactrian camel or a Sumatran tiger in a clearing. Thirty-seven acres of conifers and beech wood do half the work, the animals supplying the rest. Today the zoo is run by the Zoological Society of Wales, the conservation charity that took over in 1983, but its character still belongs to a naturalist who thought a zoo ought to feel like a mountain walk.

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Image: Geoff Charles | CC BY-SA 4.0

Welsh Mountain Zoo: A Zoo Goes Vertical

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0. The land Jackson chose climbs steeply from the coastal plain - a former hilltop estate called Flagstaff Gardens, with views all the way to the Great Orme and across to the Wirral on clear days. The contours forced a different kind of planning. Paths wind through woodland rather t...

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Image: Richard Hoare | CC BY-SA 2.0

Welsh Mountain Zoo: Forty Years of Building

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0. Once the society took over in 1983, the zoo grew in deliberate stages. Jungle Adventureland opened in 1986, the European otter enclosure in 1987. Chimpanzee World and the Children's Farm both arrived in 1990. Sea Lion Rock - one of the more theatrical additions, with daily feedin...

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Image: Richard Hoare | CC BY-SA 2.0

Welsh Mountain Zoo: Snow Leopards and a Welsh Camel

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jeff Buck, CC BY-SA 2.0. The headline arrivals came in 2006: a pair of endangered snow leopards, and the first Bactrian camel ever bred in Wales. Caracaras moved into the old condor aviary. Margays - small spotted cats from Central and South America - joined the collection around the same time. Today the...

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Image: Jeff Buck | CC BY-SA 2.0

Welsh Mountain Zoo: The Conservation Argument

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richard Hoare, CC BY-SA 2.0. The zoo's working argument, like that of most modern zoos, is that it earns its keep through breeding programmes and education. Several species in the collection - snow leopard, Sumatran tiger, red panda, Przewalski's horse - are listed by the IUCN as endangered or critically end...

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Image: Richard Hoare | CC BY-SA 2.0

Welsh Mountain Zoo: A Day on the Hill

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Darren Haddock, CC BY-SA 2.0. On a typical summer day, the queue forms early at the gates, then thins as families spread up the slope. The penguin feed draws a crowd at one end of the morning, the chimpanzees at the other. Children find the squirrel monkeys faster than their parents do. The cafe overlooks the...

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Image: Darren Haddock | CC BY-SA 2.0