Yorkshire Wildlife Park

Yorkshire Wildlife Park

The Yorkshire Wildlife Park was purchased in 2008 and was built on land formerly occupied by the 260-acre Brockholes Farm Visitor Centre and Riding School, and currently occupies about 100 acres. In February 2010, the park rescued 13 lions from a Romanian zoo and, after their quarantine period, released them into the newly built 10-acre Lion Country enclosure. In 2011, the zoo opened Land of the Tigers, which contains two pools and a waterfall and was created next to a wetland reserve. Visitors view the tigers from a 150-metre long raised walkway, with the tiger enclosure on one side of the walkway and the wetlands on the other. In March 2012, the park opened Leopard Heights, a £300,000 open-topped enclosure that lets visitors view the Amur Leopards from an 8-metre viewing tower or from ground level through a 10-metre long glass wall. The 6,000-square-metre enclosure is claimed to be the largest leopard enclosure in the world. In July 2014, the park opened a large enclosure for polar bears, named Project Polar, with the first bear being 500 kg male Victor; a second arrived in March 2015 called Pixel, who is Victor's grandson. On 15 April 2015, Yorkshire Wildlife Park announced that one of its Amur tigers had given birth to three cubs on 29 March 2015. The park continues to welcome many visitors throughout the year.