6th July 2022, Isle of Wight
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Located on the seafront of the Sandown Bay, The Wildheart Animal Sanctuary is the perfect place to spend time on the Isle of Wight.
The sanctuary specializes in caring for rehomed animals, recently ex-circus animals from Europe. The sanctuary is currently home to Lions, Tigers, Lynx's, Meercats, Lemurs and various other primates!
The biggest stand-out for this sanctuary is the care and enthusiasm the staff have with animals. You can tell the care they have, from the guided talks, feeding sessions and the passion when you ask them a impromptu question. When you enter the sanctuary, on the bottom of your ticket there is a list of the talks and highly recommend following and listening to them. My favourite is the big-cat feeding. You watch them set-up the enclosure for the feed and then watch them.
One of my favourite past-times is watching Casper the Lion sitting on his rock, and he is the perfect subject for photographs!
New for this year is 2 Primate Domes! One of the domes is home to Lemurs, and you are able to walk-through the enclosure. This gives the perfect opportunity to watch the lemurs up close.
The other dome is for what the keepers call the "ASBO" group, who are not able to be near guests.
This was one of the first times i have ever seen Eurasian Lynxs, and they are fascinating to stand and watch. I managed to time it for feeding, and it was great to see the keepers feed them the rats and rabbits through the fence. One of them was particularly fussy and wanted a rabbit instead of the rat.
You can spend all day watching the Tigers in their pond, with a magnificent waterfall in the background.
For a extra-charge you can have the opportunity to go into a special part of the meercat enclosure and have the meercats climb over you!
I have been to many Zoo's around the country, but this is my absolute favourite. It may not have the big animals like Giraffes and Elephants but the care this place has for the animals shows and that is what makes it special! When you visit the Isle of Wight make this one of your main visits!!
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