Zoo news – September 2024

September is the beginning of our quieter season as the park is closed from Monday to Thursdays. It is a great opportunity for maintenance work to be done in the zoo and allows our staff the opportunity to carry out lots of interesting activities to continue with the best welfare of our animals and increase productivity.

New goats in the Petting Farm

Our goat herd has gotten bigger with the introduction of some new African Pygmy goats. Arriving to the park in the summer, the new herd spent some time in a separate, off show paddock, to go through quarantine protocols and to allow them time to acclimatise to their new environment. Afterwards they were introduced to the resident herd, in small groups, and once the zookeepers were happy that they were part of the group, they were introduced to the petting farm.

L-R: Oreo, Freddo, Caramel, Taz, Coco, Bernie

Alpacas going to a new home

Two of our alpacas, Bainne and Adne, have headed off to Cork to start a new life in a farm down there. They will be sadly missed by our keepers here who have created a very strong bond with them over the years.

Images of zookeeper Craig with Bainne in 2016 and then in 2014, 8 wonderful years of friendship. 

Spotted on Site with BIAZA

Since the beginning of the summer, the Zoo team have been really busy taking part in BIAZA’s Spotted on Site project. This aims to investigate local biodiversity through observations and recordings of all of the different species spotted in the park.

Using the iNaturalist app, the team has made over 1,500 observations, spotting over 500 different species throughout Emerald Park so far!

Some of the most observed species are Robins, European Common Frogs and Eurasian Jackdaws. A few species that were seen a bit more rarely included House Jumping Spider, a Little Egret and Wild Strawberry’s.

One of the most exciting observations was recorded by zookeeper Anthony, who captured this image of an Irish Mountain Hare (Lepus timeous) which was spotted in the early morning near the entrance to the park.

These recordings not only allow us to observe the amazing wildlife that we have in the park but also allows important work to be carried out, such as:

• Identifying biodiversity hotspots and cold spots in the park which allows us to focus on increasing biodiversity in particular areas
• Contributing to important research into native biodiversity in Ireland and the UK
• This will help us to notice any changes in species that are present with the changing seasons.

This exciting project allows us to put a spotlight on the amazing organisms that can be found in the park and helps us to realise that Zoos are an important sanctuary, not just for the animals in the collection, but wild species too.

The team will continue with recording observations into the future.

Written by Zookeeper Cian

Thanks for reading. Check back next month for more zoo updates!

The Emerald Park Zoo Team