Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo

Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo
Lemur island at Folly Farm
Date opened 17th July 1988
Location Pembrokeshire, Wales
Coordinates 51°44′36″N 4°43′49″W / 51.743329°N 4.730273°W / 51.743329; -4.730273Coordinates: 51°44′36″N 4°43′49″W / 51.743329°N 4.730273°W / 51.743329; -4.730273
No. of animals 700+
No. of species 200+
Annual visitors 500000
Website www.folly-farm.co.uk

Folly Farm Adventure Park and Zoo (also known as Folly Farm), situated to the north of Saundersfoot and Tenby in Pembrokeshire, is a visitor attraction in Wales with around 500,000 visitors each year. Initially a farm attraction, the park is now also home to an indoor vintage funfair, a zoo with over 200 different species of animal and extensive indoor and outdoor adventure play areas.

The original farm has expanded and now covers a significant part of the park including a large undercover Jolly Barn area featuring horses, goats, sheep, pigs and smaller petting animals. Folly Farm is made up of four areas: a farmyard; a zoo; an undercover vintage funfair, including a Wurlitzer organ;[1] There is a daily timetable of "meet-and-greet" sessions and visitors may hand-milk goats at certain times of the day. The park has expanded to the other side of the A478 road where more animals can be found in outdoor paddocks. A tractor-driven land-train ride touring the outdoor paddocks, operates between late-morning and mid-afternoon.

In 2013, Folly Farm added Penguin Coast, a state-of-the-art saltwater penguin enclosure which is home to 24 Humboldt penguins and was the setting for an unusual proposal of marriage.[2]

In 2014, Folly Farm opened Pride of Pembrokeshire, to house six African lions[3]. This was followed in 2015 by Kifaru Reserve, a breeding facility for Eastern black rhino, as part of its membership of 14 European Endangered Species Breeding Programmes (EEPs)[4].

A limited company, Folly Farm is owned and operated by the Williams and Ebsworth families and holds Investors in People status with 90 full-time employees and an additional 100 seasonal members of staff.

History

Folly Farm started life as a dairy farm. After noticing that families were stopping by the roadside to pet and watch their cattle, the Folly Farm founders decided to diversify into tourism. In 1988, the dairy farm was converted to receive visitors; now guests could stop to visit the Folly Farm cows and see them being milked. Over the last 25 years Folly Farm has grown with continued reinvestment. The first zoo animals arrived at the park in 2002.[5]

Winner of the Wales Tourist Board's 2005 Best Day Out in Wales award, and again in 2010, and in 2015.[6] In 2009, winner of Pembrokeshire Tourism's Best Family Day Out award. Folly Farm was named 10th Best Zoo in the World in the 2017 TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards.[7]

Folly Farm's giraffe

Zoo

The zoo animal collection includes:

The Zoo is a member of EAZA and BIAZA taking part in a European breeding program for Eastern Black Rhinos, which are listed as critically endangered animals according to the IUCN red list.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Folly Farm Pembrokeshire, A look at the past". ridemad.com. December 30, 2006.
  2. ↑ "P-p-please will you marry me?". ITV Wales. 4 September 2013.
  3. ↑ "Folly Farm lions settle into life in Pembrokeshire". Western Telegraph. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
  4. ↑ "Rare black rhinos arrive at Pembrokeshire Zoo". ITV News. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
  5. ↑ "All the fun of the farm". South Wales Evening Post. 2013-06-15. Archived from the original on 2015-08-22. Retrieved 2015-08-22.
  6. ↑ "County Scoops Top Accolades in National Tourism Awards". Western Telegraph. 25 October 2010.
  7. ↑ "Folly Farm named 10th best zoo in the world!". Tenby Observer. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
  8. ↑ http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/three-critically-endangered-eastern-black-8662030


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