Message from our CEO

MESSAGE FROM OUR CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

This has got to be by far the strangest annual report CEO message I have ever written, why? Well it feels like I’m writing a chapter from a fiction book. First of all it’s not a single year it’s actually a message for two years, and secondly, some of the events within don’t actually feel real now. So here goes

The period started in mayhem as we were recovering from the worst floods the area has ever suffered and the park in particular felt the brunt of it, this meant for the first time ever we had to close our doors in the summer period in order to make the site safe and also attempt in vain to relocate thousands of gallons of water, the parrots had to stay high on their perches, animals were moved on to concrete pads which were located a little higher than the sodden ground and we all mucked in with buckets, pumps and hoses strewn everywhere. It took approximately ten days but eventually we were dry and ready to receive customers again.

We are very fortunate that our amazing new development the Animal Rehabilitation Reception Centre (ARRC) was fully complete and operational giving us many options to cater for any of the birds or small animals that needed that little bit of extra care.

Work began on a number of projects including a new enclosure for our ageing lemurs, a sensory enclosure for Nigel our puma who’s eyesight is deteriorating slowly and a new parrot enclosure that we aptly titled the Cathedral Aviary due to its unique design, this will provide new facilities for the mixed Amazon Parrots and also create further space for the growing number of psychologically damaged cockatoos.

The year ended with the arrival of Pascha and Uganda, a truly spectacular pair of 9-year-old white lions (brothers) who needed long-term sanctuary. Sadly the pair were very institutionalised with a lot of mental health problems and had suffered some facial trauma.

Christmas was therefore all things lion as I personally spent an awful amount of my time with these two in order to settle them in. 2020 began with rumours on the international news of a virus that was spreading around China, something named Covid-19. Naturally this was of little concern to all of us in the UK as we’d heard these kinds of scare-mongering rumours many times over the past 30 or 40 years.

Little did we know this one was real.

There was no real hurry to get things done so all at the park continued with their daily duties and began preparing for a new season with full optimism of it being a good year. The situation accelerated rapidly and before we knew it we were in March, the virus was spreading world-wide. The news we were all dreading appeared in my inbox. The Park had to close its doors to the general public the same for all zoos and wildlife parks along with many industries.

Over the next few months we experienced a different atmosphere as the park staff had to be split into groups to prevent spread of the disease should it occur. We took our little park online and began generating followers and supporters from Facebook which turned out to be one of the best things we have ever done with regards to realising just how important we are to some people and how we helped them throughout this awful period.

We were allowed to open for a few weeks in the summer, but again requested to close as the winter drew in. This period lasted for a further 5 months and eventually in April 21 we were allowed to open and this time we expect it to be for good (fingers crossed).

The charity had suffered considerably but managed to get through. We opened with a bang deciding to increase our staffing levels along with inviting a whole new set of Trustees to the board in order to increase our strength and position should anything like this happen again.

So here we are in the middle of 2021 licking our wounds from the worst year we’ve ever had but with the optimism of a new exiting period in front of us. We’ve generated nearly 100,000 followers on Facebook, over 12 million video views from our live videos, we have completed the Cathedral Aviary and the parrots love it, Nigel’s is very near to being completed, the lemurs are in their new home and Pascha and Uganda have settled in very well.

We have many new staff and practically a completely new team of excited Trustees who are willing to take us to the next level. So let’s use the past 2 years as a lesson in life and make this charity as strong as we can get.

Thank you to my family for sticking by me as I watched my dream take its biggest threat against its existence to date.

A massive thank you to our amazing staff who turned up day after day throughout this pandemic and not once questioned why half of the UK were taking nearly a years paid holiday, yet they had to continue working.

Finally thank you to our wonderful supporters who without your support, I am sure we would have suffered much more than we did.

Here’s to the future…….