Northumberland Zoo

27/10/2024

It’s - what better way to appreciate it than enjoying the morning hanging out like a bat?

Turn the volume up to listen to the morning chit-chat over breakfast.

26/10/2024

We had some incredible costumes tonight!

What a great night, looking forward to tomorrow!

Very busy evening at Northumberland Zoo for the first of their Halloween events. Managed to snap these two when I finished as they were the last in line. Same again tomorrow!

26/10/2024

What better way to celebrate than with your very own plush bat to take home!

We worked with Wild Republic to create a very special Northumberland Zoo branded Livingstone’s Fruit Bat toy, made from recycled plastic bottles that are SO soft and squeezable!

Don’t forget - you can still join us TONIGHT and tomorrow night from 4:30pm, after-hours, for our Halloween event in aid of Dahari NGO - the conservation organisation working to protect the remaining populations of this critically endangered fruit bat.

What’s included?
🦇Haunted trail (not for the faint-hearted! family-friendly between 4:30 - 5:30pm)
🦇Creepy crawlies up-close
🦇See our megabats & Curious Creatures after hours*
🦇Take home a hand-made bat craft
🦇Toasted Marshmallows
🦇Spooky face-painting (ages 3+)
🦇Bear Falls Softplay Open
🦇Fancy Dress competition for Adults & Children - prizes to be won!

25/10/2024

🦇Did you know it was ?🦇

Here at the Zoo we have the UK's only population of Livingstone's Fruit Bats - a critically endangered species of mega fruit bat from the Union of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean.

This species is at risk of imminent extinction due to loss of habitats and climate change.

They are the 3rd largest bat species in the world with an impressive 1.2m wingspan!

We support Dahari NGO, a conservation charity located on the Comoros Islands who are working with the local farmers to educate and encourage them to leave areas of trees so that these bats can keep their homes.

Join us for NorthumBOOland Zoo and help us raise money for this vital charity AND have a spooky, fun-filled night for both adults and children!

Meanwhile, please appreciate these stunning portraits of some of our residents here at the Zoo - we also sell Bat Encounters where you can get up close with these amazing animals.

24/10/2024

How pretty is this! 😍

Very excited for NorthumBOOland Zoo Halloween this weekend!

23/10/2024

Even after almost a year, Hadrian is still such a mummy's boy. 🥰

Hadrian was our first of 3 bat pups born at the Zoo last November and is continuing to do well.

We are the only Zoo in the UK to keep this species, with just over 100 in captivity in the world and only around 1,300 left in the wild - they are one of the rarest bat species in the world and they need your love too.

Dahari

20/10/2024

Just one week until NorthumBOOland Zoo!

🎃👻🦇🐜🕷🕸🐍🎃

16/10/2024

🎃Before and After🎃

Congratulations to Sophie Rosina! You have been randomly selected to WIN our two tickets to our NorthumBOOland Zoo Halloween event! Get in touch with us to arrange your visit!

Join us on the 26th and 27th for our after-hours Halloween Event in aid of the critically endangered Livingstone's Fruit Bats!

What's included?
🎃Haunted trail (not for the faint-hearted! Family-friendly between 4:30 - 5:30pm)
👻Creepy crawlies up-close
💀See our megabats & Curious Creatures after hours*
🎃Take home a hand-made bat craft
👻Toasted Marshmallows
💀Spooky face-painting (ages 3+)
🎃Bear Falls Softplay Open
👻Fancy Dress competition for Adults & Children - prizes to be won
💀Face your fears with our creepy touch boxes
🎃Solve the puzzle to make the Witch's Brew

16:30 - 19:00 on the 26th & 27th October.

Speciality drinks, creepy treats as well as hot food available in the Bear Falls Cafe.

Please note that large areas of the Zoo will be closed off during this event. Guests will have access to the Halloween event areas only.
All activities are indoors, walkways are outdoors.

13/10/2024

🎃WIN 2 TICKETS TO OUR HALLOWEEN EVENT🎃

Join us on the 26th and 27th for our after-hours Halloween Event in aid of the critically endangered Livingstone's Fruit Bats!

For your chance to win, just LIKE and SHARE this post! Winner will be selected on Wednesday 16th!

What's included?
🎃Haunted trail (not for the faint-hearted! Family-friendly between 4:30 - 5:30pm)
👻Creepy crawlies up-close
💀See our megabats & Curious Creatures after hours*
🎃Take home a hand-made bat craft
👻Toasted Marshmallows
💀Spooky face-painting (ages 3+)
🎃Bear Falls Softplay Open
👻Fancy Dress competition for Adults & Children - prizes to be won
💀Face your fears with our creepy touch boxes
🎃Solve the puzzle to make the Witch's Brew

16:30 - 19:00 on the 26th & 27th October.

Speciality drinks, creepy treats as well as hot food available in the Bear Falls Cafe.

Please note that large areas of the Zoo will be closed off during this event. Guests will have access to the Halloween event areas only.

All activities are indoors, walkways are outdoors.

11/10/2024

Did you see it last night? 👀

Show us your photos because we can't get enough of it. 📸

Last night's aurora was due to a strong geomagnetic storm caused by a burst of solar energy reaching Earth's atmosphere.

ITV Tyne Tees BBC News BBC Look North BIAZA

06/10/2024

🎃 HALLOWEEN at the ZOO 🎃

Join us after hours on the 26th & 27th October for our NorthumBOOland Halloween event!

🎃 Indoor Haunted Trail - family-friendly between 4:30-5:30
🦇 Creepy Crawlies up close in our Wild Theatre
🎃 See our Bat House and Curious Creatures exhibits after hours
🦇 Take home a home-made bat handicraft!
🎃 Toasted Marshmallows
🦇 Spooky face-painting for 3+
🎃 Bear Falls Softplay Open
🦇 Fancy Dress Competitions

🦇 Help us raise money for our critically endangered Livingstone's Fruit Bat conservation project based on the Comoros Islands

☕ Bear Falls Cafe will be open serving hot food and spooky snacks!

☔️ No matter the weather, all of the events are indoors

04/10/2024

🌍Today is International Zookeeper Day🌎

❤️This post is dedicated to our amazing team of devoted keepers!

🦜They always give 100% no matter the season, provide our animals with excellent welfare by contributing tonnes of creative ideas for enclosures, enrichment and practices.

🦉Not to mention all the excellent work they do to make our visitors have the best day out at the zoo.

🦇We appreciate everything you do for the collection so we want to say a HUGE thank you!

03/10/2024

🐿 Red Squirrels at Northumberland Zoo! 🐿

This week is Red Squirrel Awareness Week and we wanted to take this opportunity to announce that soon we will be home to a small group of red squirrels!

We have been working really hard this year creating an enclosure for the red squirrels and hope to welcome them to the Zoo this winter. We will keep you updated on the progress and in the meantime, you can catch-up on our Youtube channel to see the exhibit so far!

Facts about Red Squirrels:
🐿 Native to the UK
🐿 In decline due to the invasive Grey Squirrels
🐿 Grey Squirrels carry squirrelpox virus which is fatal to red squirrels
🐿 Approx 275,000 red squirrels remaining in the UK compared to nearly 3,000,000 grey squirrels
🐿 Grey squirrels can grow to twice the size of red squirrels
🐿 Grey squirrels damage our native trees by stripping their bark to eat the sap - killing the trees.

29/09/2024

This is truly devastating.

The Environment Agency is investigating an incident relating to our endangered native, white-clawed crayfish in Northumberland after reports of around 70 dead crayfish.

Testing has already ruled out the listed disease white spot syndrome virus as well as crayfish plague, and water quality testing has ruled out pollution.

Further testing is being carried out by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) on on crayfish taken from affected locations to understand if an infectious aquatic animal disease has caused the deaths.

All evidence presently points to the mortalities only affecting white clawed crayfish. As such, it is unlikely to cause a risk to humans, pets or other wildlife.

What can you do?

Check, Clean and Dry
As regular river users we are asking you to play your part to help limit the spread of any potential infection to unaffected areas by following the Check, Clean, Dry procedures.

🦞Check your clothing and equipment for mud, aquatic animals or plant material. Remove anything you find and leave it at the site.
🦞Clean everything thoroughly as soon as you can, paying attention to areas that are damp or hard to access and using hot water if possible.
🦞Dry everything for as long as you can before using elsewhere.

More information can be found on the invasive non-native species website.

What’s Next?

While testing continues to identify a cause for the deaths, the Environment Agency is working to determine the likely extent of the affected area. So far they have seen affected crayfish in the main River Wansbeck, Hart Burn, Font Burn and Delf Burn.

If you see any crayfish, alive or dead, please report it immediately to the Environment Agency on 0800 807060. Do not touch crayfish or attempt to move them, as it is illegal to handle or remove crayfish from the water without the correct licences.

Here at Northumberland Zoo, we are currently rearing a population of craylings who will be able to populate new ark sites in Northumberland in the future to help safeguard the future of this species.

Why does it matter?

White-clawed crayfish are a keystone species for our riverways - working as cleaners, indicators of clean waterways and they are a vital food source for our otters. Without them, it has a drastic effect on our river biodiversity. We need them.

24/09/2024

Did you know it was Guinea Pig Awareness Week?


We teamed up with Gertie's Lonely Guinea Pig Rescue and Burgess Excel to host the launch of GPAW here at Hog Springs yesterday!

The residents of Hog Springs were thrilled to welcome their fans and have been enjoying all kinds of delights kindly donated by Burgess Excel as part of an ongoing partnership with the Zoo.

Check out Burgess Excel page for some informative videos and tours of Hog Springs during this week and learn more about what you can do for that little guinea in your life.

Did you know?
🐹 Guinea Pigs are domesticated cavies - a south American wild rodent
🐹 There are 13 different recognised breeds of Guinea Pigs
🐹 Guinea Pigs can’t make their own Vitamin C like we can, they need it from their food – that’s why the theme for GPAW this week is ‘Nibble, Nourish, Thrive’.
🐹 Their diet should be made up of 80% grass and good quality hay – like timothy hay
🐹 Guinea pigs show their excitement through ‘pop-corning’ – a guinea pig form of Zoomies!
🐹 Their origin and thin hair means that they don’t cope as well with cold weather – so they need plenty of protection from the cold

You can visit Hog Springs every day at Northumberland Zoo.

18/09/2024

Don't forget! Our upcoming events tickets are on-sale now!

🎃NorthumBOOland Zoo
October 26th/27th
Join us in the evenings for a terrifying haunted trail, face-painting, spooky snacks, costume competition, creepy crawlies and help us raise money for our Fruit Bat Conservation Programme! Non-scary hours for littlens, extra scary hours for adults!

🎄Festive Wreath-Making
November 30th - December 1st
Come for a festive afternoon of Zoo-themed wreath-making and enjoy a snack from our cafe! Limited spaces available!

🎅 Breakfast with Santa
Weekends and dates in December
Join us before the Zoo opens in our Bear Falls Cafe for a festive breakfast and meet Santa to get a zoo-themed present!

Check out all of our dates and availabilities online and book now!

📸 Ralph with his Pumpkin Friends.

13/09/2024

Brian & Linda have broke the internet!🫶🏻

Just one week ago, we published our own version of the Gen-Z Marketing Challenge with our Directors, Brian & Linda and it has gone viral around the world.

Yesterday, we were featured on Page 3 of The Guardian, today our manager, Maxine, will be featured on BBC Breakfast this morning at 8:40 and Sky News on Saturday morning chatting about how her parents have gone viral and the Zoo of course.

Ultimately, we just wanted to have a bit of fun and now that fun has been shared with 10’s of millions of people around the world.

🫶🏻

BIAZA

09/09/2024

Teaching our Directors, Brian & Linda, Gen-Z slang was not as easy as it looked.

08/09/2024

This is Ralph. He has a crunchy face. You’re welcome.

06/09/2024

04/09/2024

31/08/2024

We need the powers of social media today please - please share far and wide 🙏🏻

We need to speak to someone from NatWest Bank as soon as possible.

In a nutshell - we have been contacted by numerous people over the past several weeks stating that we have taken money from their bank accounts and they have never visited the Zoo.

Our Zoo name is showing up on their bank statements and we have no record of these payments on our side - so we do not have their money!

Through our own desperate attempts to understand what is going on, we have found a link with these payments and the Northumberland County Council - for council tax payments, car parking fines and car park fees.

This problem is making us look bad, wasting our time and we are dealing with some very rightfully angry people who haven’t even visited the Zoo - claiming we have scammed them and it needs to stop.

Dealing with Natwest support is impossible as we don’t have an account with them. Northumberland County Council also haven’t been able to help.

This is fraud and needs to stop now. If you can help, please contact the Zoo and ask for a manager.

If you’ve been affected by this, please get in touch with us and we can only apologise for this absolute sham of a situation.

Please note, we do not bank with Natwest.

📸 Photo of Filo - White-faced Saki monkey - our most angriest looking animal - but don’t hate him because that’s just his resting face.

18/08/2024

No rest for the wicked on a sleepy Sunday afternoon.

See what our raccoons get up to - download our Zoo app and watch them live on their zoolife we**am!

10/08/2024

We are HIRING!

The Zoo is expanding and developing all the time and we have a NEW position available!

😎 Zoo Operations Manager 😎

Working at the Zoo is unlike any other job.. you are surrounded by nature in our rural location as well as an amazing array of species from critically endangered megabats to bouncy snow leopards.

The Zoo operations manager will oversee the smooth operation and help upkeep the high standards of the zoo visitor areas, including all public areas, the Bear Falls Cafe and the Zoo Gift Shop.

Interested in this rare opportunity? Check out our website for more information and apply before 29th August.