Chester Zoo

Chester Zoo is a zoo at Upton-by-Chester, Cheshire, England. Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family. The zoo is one of the UK's largest zoos at 51 ha and the zoo has a total land holding of approximately 160 ha.

Chester Zoo is operated by the North of England Zoological Society, a registered charity founded in 1934. The zoo receives no government funding and is the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain with more than 2 million visitors in 2019. In 2007 Forbes described the zoo as one of the fifteen best zoos in the world. In 2017 and more recently, 2024, the zoo was named as the best zoo in the UK and as also regarded as the third best in the world by TripAdvisor.

Early history
The Mottershead family's market garden business was based in Shavington near Crewe. George Mottershead collected animals such as lizards and insects that arrived with exotic plants imported by the business. A visit to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester as a boy in 1903 fuelled his developing interest in creating a zoo of his own.

Mottershead was wounded in the First World War and spent several years in a wheelchair. Despite this, his collection of animals grew and he began to search for a suitable home for his zoo. He chose Oakfield Manor in Upton-by-Chester, which was a country village then but now is a suburb of Chester. He bought Oakfield Manor for £3,500 in 1930. The house had 9 acre of gardens and provided easy access to the railways and to Manchester and Liverpool. There were local objections, but Mottershead prevailed, and Chester Zoo opened to the public on 10 June 1931. The first animals were displayed in pens in the courtyard.

An Ordnance Survey inch-a-mile map published in 1936 shows the area around as farmland and villages and marks the present Zoo area north of Oakfield as "Butter Hill".

Rapid expansion followed after the Second World War, despite the difficulty of sourcing materials. Mottershead had to be resourceful; the polar bear exhibit (1950) was built from recycled wartime road blocks and pillboxes. "Always building" was the zoo's slogan at the time. Mottershead received the OBE, an honorary degree of MSc, and served as President of the International Union of Zoo Directors. He died in 1978 aged 84.

Zoo design
Mottershead wanted to build a zoo without the traditional Victorian iron bars to cage the animals. He was influenced by the ideas of Carl Hagenbeck, who invented the modern zoo concept and by Heini Hediger, a pioneer of ethology.

At Chester, Mottershead took Hagenbeck's idea for moats and ditches as an alternative to cage bars, and extended their use throughout the zoo, often with species that Hagenbeck had not considered. For example, when chimpanzees were released into their new enclosure at Chester in 1956, a group of grassy islands, they were separated from visitors by no more than a 12 ft strip of water. Nobody knew then if chimps could swim. It turned out that they could not, and today the chimp islands are a centrepiece of Chester Zoo.

In 1986 the zoo was enclosed with a fence, in line with the Zoo Licensing Act 1981.

21st century
Realm of the Red Ape, an Indonesian-forest-themed exhibit, featuring threatened Sumatran and Bornean orangutan, opened in May 2007.

In January 2009, Chester Zoo unveiled Natural Vision, a £225 million plan to transform itself into the largest conservation attraction in Europe. The first phase of the plan was to be a £90 million, 56 ha enclosed African-rainforest-themed sanctuary containing a band of gorillas and a troop of chimpanzees, as well as okapi and a variety of tropical birds, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrates, moving freely among lush vegetation. It included a water ride to take visitors through the exhibit. Natural Vision was to eventually include a 90-room hotel, a Conservation College, and a revamped main entrance that would link the zoo to a marina to be developed on zoo land, all to be completed by 2018. Plans went before the public for comment in June 2009.

The projected Heart of Africa bio-dome, along with plans for the hotel, were shelved in 2011 due to the loss of £40m potential funding when the North West Regional Development Agency was abolished.

In December 2012 planning permission was gained for a later phase of the Natural Vision masterplan. One of the largest zoo developments in Europe, Islands at Chester Zoo is a £40 million redevelopment project to extend the zoo's footprint and recreate six island habitats of Southeast Asia. As of 2017 it is now open.

A 600,000 square foot nature reserve was opened in April 2018. The reserve sits outside the boundary of the main zoo and is free for people to enter.

In October 2018, two Indian elephant calves (Nandita Hi Way, age 3 years, and Aayu Hi Way, age 18 months), died of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV). From 1995 on this virus disease has caused many deaths of Indian elephants across the world in zoos and in the wild.

On 15 December 2018, an electrical fault caused a fire to break out at the Monsoon Forest Habitat. The zoo had to be evacuated and was closed. Fifteen fire crews attended the zoo along with two rapid response units and an ambulance. All mammals were accounted for and one person was treated for the effects of smoke inhalation. Some birds, frogs, fish and small insects were killed in the blaze. The zoo reopened on Sunday 16 December 2018.

Chester Zoo monorail was an internal transport system for visitors from 1991 to 2019, but was closed as it had become unreliable and covered less than half the zoo due to the zoo's expansion to over 125 acre. Land from the monorail will be used for a new attraction called Heart of Africa, an open African savannah habitat and vulture aviary. The zoo are also at the same time developing The Reserve Hotel project, a collection of 51 lodges, restaurant and access into the zoo.

Management structure
The North of England Zoological Society (NEZS) is the organisation that runs Chester Zoo. It was formed in 1931 by the zoo's founder, George Mottershead.

The zoo is managed by a team led by CEO Jamie Christon DL and he reports to the Board of Trustees. Jamie is tasked with focusing on the unified strategy which supports the Strategic Development Plan and Conservation Plan. The plan includes the development of Heart of Africa, The Reserve Hotel, new education facilities, The Square wedding venue, and from 2028 the development of African Forests. The executive focuses on education change and DEAI through its people and culture.Chester Zoo leads in public affairs and has influenced heavily at the heart of UK government.

The zoo employs over 650 permanent staff, increasing to over 1,000 during the main summer period, making it the largest zoo in the UK.

Layout and facilities
The zoo is bisected by a public bridleway, Flag Lane (formerly the Millennium Cycle Path). For many years, a single bridge (now called Elephants' Bridge), drivable by zoo vehicles and powered wheelchairs, near the elephant exhibit was the only crossing place within the grounds. A second crossing, passable by pedestrians and mobility scooters, called Bats' Bridge, opened in April 2008 near the Twilight Zone (now called Fruit Bat Forest), has improved the ability of visitors to circulate.

For a long time the public entrance was at the east end off Caughall Road. In recent years the public entrance has moved to the north side with dedicated access off the A41 Chester By-Pass. Thus the zoo is entered in the 'newer' part west of Flag Lane, near the elephants, and the old car parks at the east end are being built over with service and educational buildings. The new entrance was re-modelled in 2012 to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The zoo owns land outside the public area, and uses that land to grow food for its herbivorous animals.

Chester's catering facilities include Bembé Kitchen (formerly the Tsavo Cafe) near the main entrance which opened in 2006. June's Pavilion (formerly the Jubilee Cafe and latterly the Ark Restaurant) is on the west of the zoo and Manado Street Kitchen is found on Sulawesi in the Islands exhibit. The Oakfield is a restaurant in a Victorian mansion house near the lion enclosure, and along with the Acorn Bar, are both used for private functions as well as catering to zoo visitors.

There are children's play areas, shops, kiosks and several picnic lawns around the zoo. A second pedestrian entrance is located in the southeast corner of the zoo behind Oakfield House.

Species and animals
Chester Zoo holds a large and diverse collection. At the end of 2007, over half the species at the zoo appeared on the IUCN Red List and 155 were classified as threatened species. 134 species were kept as part of a managed captive breeding programme. The zoo manages the studbooks for Congo buffalo, jaguar, blue-eyed cockatoo, Madagascan tree boa, gemsbok (all ESB species), eastern black rhinoceros, Ecuadorian amazon parrot, Mindanao writhe-billed hornbill, Sumatran tiger and Rodrigues flying fox (all EEP species). In addition, Chester holds 265 threatened plant species. At the end of 2015, Chester zoo became the first zoo outside of New Zealand to breed the tuatara.

Islands at Chester Zoo
The zoo opened Islands at Chester Zoo in July 2015, a project extending the footprint of the zoo by 15 acres and built to the south of the west half of the current site.

Islands showcases areas where the zoo is involved in conservation programmes, including Sumatra, the Philippines and Indonesia. Visitors are able to walk between the islands via a series of bridges and can also view the animals whilst on a boat trip. The project also includes educational exhibits, play areas and a restaurant, the Manado Street Kitchen. The exhibit is opening in phases with phase one including a boat trip around the enclosures for visitors to view some of the zoo's key species from South East Asia, including Visayan warty pigs, southern cassowary, Javan banteng, lowland anoa and North Sulawesi babirusa; plus a walk-through bird aviary featuring the critically endangered Bali starling, as well as Java sparrows, pied imperial pigeons and purple-naped lories.

Phase two opened later in the summer and includes Sumatran tigers, Sunda gharials, and other reptiles (such as tentacled snakes and brown tortoises), birds (Javan rhinoceros hornbills, and Indonesian songbirds) invertebrates and a variety of fish species. That phase including Monsoon Forest is now complete and open with the installation of the Sumatran orangutans and the arrival of a breeding pair of Javan silvery gibbons in December 2015.

A third phase for Islands opened in summer 2017. The third phase included new exhibits for Malayan sun bear, Palawan binturongs, Malayan tapir, and a new songbird aviary featuring various birds from Indonesia as well as the critically endangered Javan green magpie. The magpies are, sometimes, off-show and replaced by sumatran laughingthrush.

Membership and adoption
The zoo has a service that gives people the option of adopting an animal of their choice, they are also given two complimentary tickets to allow them to visit the animals. They can also become members which allows them to visit Chester and a range of other zoos across the UK free of charge for a year. The zoo has over 145,000 members. Every three months, members and adopters receive the zoo magazine on line, which provides updates and information about what is happening at the zoo.

Television
During summer 2007, television crews from Granada filmed at Chester for the documentary series Zoo Days, a behind the scenes look at the day-to-day running of the zoo, narrated by Jane Horrocks. British broadcast rights were sold to Five and the first 20-part series began airing on British terrestrial TV on 8 October 2007, transmitting on weekday evenings in a regular 6:30 pm slot. A second 20-part series of Zoo Days was swiftly commissioned and began airing on 3 March 2008. The third 20-part series was broadcast from Colchester Zoo, before returning to Chester for the fourth 20-part series on 10 November 2008.

In 2014 the zoo was the subject of BBC One drama Our Zoo, telling the story of the founding of Chester Zoo by the Mottershead family in the 1930s. During the six-part series, the show reached audiences in excess of five million viewers and was nominated for two National TV awards.

In January 2016, Channel 4 began broadcasting a six-part series, The Secret Life of the Zoo, following the keepers and animals at Chester Zoo and narrated by Olivia Colman from Series 1 to 5 and Tamsin Grieg since Series 6. The series was a rating's success and was recommissioned for a second series. Series 2 aired at the end of 2016. The show has now run for ten seasons with a compilation series in 2020.