A week of events to celebrate 21 years of walking on the wild side

IRELAND’S leading wildlife park will tomorrow celebrate its success in encouraging us to take a walk on the wild side for the past 21 years.

Fota Wildlife Park in Co Cork will celebrate its 21st birthday by kicking off a week of public events to help visitors join in the celebration of this milestone.

Face painters, stilt-walkers, unicyclists, jugglers and magic shows will be dotted around the park until Friday to mark the event.

A record 301,300 people visited Fota last year, and the park looks set to break that record this year.

“We expect this to grow even higher in 2004,” Fota’s director Dr Neil Stronach said last night.

“This is a very special occasion for Fota, and it proves how popular the park has become over the last 21 years, as our numbers continue to grow and exceed expectation year on year.”

The joint Zoological Society of Ireland and UCC non-profit organisation has welcomed more than four million visitors through its gates over the last 21 years.

When officially opened in July 1983 by the then President, Dr Patrick Hillery, Fota was home to 32 species of animals. Today there are 78 species living in the 70-acre park.

The park’s newest arrivals, cheetah cubs Impie, Tombie and Zulu, born last October, and bison calf, Loes, born earlier this month, will probably not make a big deal of tomorrow’s celebrations. The milestone also will likely pass unnoticed by some of its more seasoned guests, such as two white pelicans who arrived in the park from Budapest Zoo in December 1983, the Scarlett Macaws Robert and Roberta who have lived in the park since 1985, and Clyde, a male Siamang Gibbon, who has called Fota home since 1984. Clyde’s first wife, Bonnie, died in 1994. But Clyde and his new partner, Kaya, have had three babies, with one sent to a zoo in France.

While tomorrow will be just like any other for his charges, it will be a very special occasion for head warden, Willie Duffy from Cobh, who has worked at Fota since 1986.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes and developments here over the last five years in particular.

“Winter can be hard but it’s great at this time of the year when the weather’s great. You’re out and about meeting people and there’s the added bonus of working with the animals,” he said.

Since its opening, Fota has played a significant role in supporting worldwide conservation projects. It is contributing to 22 different projects in 16 countries around the world including the global Cheetah Conservation Programme. One significant moment came in October 1984, when five cheetah cubs were born. The first time this endangered species was born in Ireland, since then, 176 cheetahs have been born in the park.

For more details on Fota’s 21st birthday party, call 021-4812678 or log onto www.fotawildlife.ie.