Natureland Seal Sanctuary, also referred to as Skegness Natureland or Skegness Seal Sanctuary is an animal attraction in

Skegness Skegness ( ) is a seaside town and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. On the Lincolnshire coast of the North Sea, the town is east of Lincoln and north-east of Boston. With a population of 19,579 as of 2011, i ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Attractions

Natureland is a seal sanctuary, with a

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impr ...

hospital, a small

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 ...

, tropical glasshouses (known as the 'Floral Palace') and an

aquarium An aquarium (plural: ''aquariums'' or ''aquaria'') is a vivarium of any size having at least one transparent side in which aquatic plants or animals are kept and displayed. Fishkeepers use aquaria to keep fish, invertebrates, amphibians, aq ...

. Animals include seals,

African penguin The African penguin (''Spheniscus demersus''), also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin, is a species of penguin confined to southern African waters. Like all extant penguins, it is flightless, with a streamlined body and wings stiff ...

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to inclu ...

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

tarantula Tarantulas comprise a group of large and often hairy spiders of the family Theraphosidae. , 1,040 species have been identified, with 156 genera. The term "tarantula" is usually used to describe members of the family Theraphosidae, although ...

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

terrapin Terrapins are one of several small species of turtle (order Testudines) living in fresh or brackish water. Terrapins do not form a taxonomic unit and may not be closely related. Many belong to the families Geoemydidae and Emydidae. The name ...

scorpion Scorpions are predatory arachnids of the order Scorpiones. They have eight legs, and are easily recognized by a pair of grasping pincers and a narrow, segmented tail, often carried in a characteristic forward curve over the back and always end ...

s, as well as tropical

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

and

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

. Glasshouses contain many exotic plants, including

cacti A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...

from the US, Mediterranean shrubs and

banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

plants. In the seal hospital, orphaned seal pups are reared before eventually being released back into the wild. 30-60 seals are rescued by Natureland each winter. In April 2018 Natureland rescued their 800th seal. There are daily talks where the resident seals show off natural behaviours that have been enhanced by a training programme. Facilities at the centre include a cafe/restaurant, gift shop, customer toilets and a small area for children to try their hand at activities including

brass rubbing Brass rubbing was originally a largely British enthusiasm for reproducing onto paper monumental brasses – commemorative brass plaques found in churches, usually originally on the floor, from between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. The ...

. It is situated on North Parade, next to the beach, and open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day. There is a fee for entry.

History

Before Natureland was opened there were butterfly houses, known even then as the 'Floral Palace', an aquarium and a gift shop at the site, which was run by an investment company based in Manchester. Natureland was founded in 1965 by John Yeadon, when it was opened by

Princess Margaret Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, (Margaret Rose; 21 August 1930 – 9 February 2002) was the younger daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the younger sister and only sibling of Queen Elizabeth ...

and the attraction is still run by Yeadon's family. In 1966/67 Natureland featured in the BBC children's television programme

Blue Peter ''Blue Peter'' is a British children's television entertainment programme created by John Hunter Blair. It is the longest-running children's TV show in the world, having been broadcast since October 1958. It was broadcast primarily from BBC Tel ...

and was visited by

John Noakes John Noakes (born John Wallace Bottomley; 6 March 1934 – 28 May 2017) was an English television presenter and former actor. He co-presented the BBC children's magazine programme ''Blue Peter'' in the 1960s and 1970s and was the show's longes ...

. In 1981 Natureland rescued a

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped, flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in ...

, which they named 'Wally', which had strayed from the animals' usual Arctic range. It is rare for walruses to visit the United Kingdom and then they are usually only seen around the Scottish islands. In 2012 Natureland rescued a rare

hooded seal The hooded seal (''Cystophora cristata'') is a large phocid found only in the central and western North Atlantic, ranging from Svalbard in the east to the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the west. The seals are typically silver-grey or white in color, w ...

, which had travelled to Lincolnshire all the way from

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

. In 2015 a television series about the attraction ran on

Estuary TV Estuary TV was a local television station based in the United Kingdom. Coverage Estuary TV was the UK's longest running local television station at the time of its closure. It reached approximately 140,000 homes in North and North East Linco ...

. and in 2017

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

ran a feature about Natureland on a programme called ''Countryfile Winter Diaries''.The Skegness Siren - Natureland on TV
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References

External links

*
Natureland Seal Sanctuary Review
{{coord, 53.1486, 0.347, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Zoos in England Aquaria in England Seal sanctuaries Organisations based in Lincolnshire Skegness Zoos established in 1965 1965 establishments in England Tourist attractions in Lincolnshire

Attractions

History

See also

References

External links