Hamerton Zoo Park is situated in Hamerton, near

Sawtry Sawtry () is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Sawtry lies approximately north of Huntingdon. Sawtry is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic ...

Huntingdonshire Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popu ...

, England.

Development

Planning permission for change of use from agricultural land to a

zoo A zoo (short for zoological garden; also called an animal park or menagerie) is a facility in which animals are kept within enclosures for public exhibition and often bred for conservation purposes. The term ''zoological garden'' refers to zoo ...

was granted in 1988, with the park being opened on 15 June 1990 by local MP, then-Chancellor, and future Prime Minister John Major. The zoo has two large

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each yea ...

s to provide power for the park erected during the second half of November 2012; the zoo was described as being the "most environmentally-friendly zoo in Europe" in 2014. An application for two 50 kW turbines was turned down in August 2015 by

Huntingdonshire District Council Huntingdonshire District Council is the local authority for the district of Huntingdonshire in Cambridgeshire, England. Based in Huntingdon, it forms the lower part of the two tier system of local government in the district, below Cambridgeshire ...

Conservation

The zoo has a conservation sanctuary which has a collection of nearly 100 different species including rare / endangered animals and birds.

Tiger incident

The park was evacuated on the morning of 29 May 2017 after what was described as a 'serious incident'. It was later confirmed that

zookeeper A zookeeper, sometimes referred as animal keeper, is a person who manages zoo animals that are kept in captivity for conservation or to be displayed to the public.Hurwitz, Jane. Choosing a Career in Animal Care (World of Work). New York: Rosen Gr ...

Rosa King, age 33, had been killed in the tiger enclosure at about 11:15a.m. that day.

References

External links

Zoo's website
{{authority control Zoos in England Tourist attractions in Cambridgeshire