Fota Wildlife Park plans more than bear necessities in €16m upgrade

By Sean O’Riordan

Fota Wildlife Park is planning a €16m upgrade which will include the addition of Asian bears, Chinese takin, a Madagascan village, and a new restaurant/conference centre.

Park director Sean McKeown said the upgrade would take place on a phased basis over a five-year period and is designed to bring annual visitor numbers over the 500,000 mark.

Among the newest animal additions for the park will be the Chinese takin, which Mr McKeown explained is a goat/antelope-type creature found in the eastern Himalayas.

“They’re the size of a small pony. The golden takin is supposed to have given rise to the legend of the Golden Fleece.”

The wildlife park plans to construct 17 buildings, 13 of which will be for housing animals. The plans include:

The creation of a Madagascan village to provide indoor accommodation for lemurs;

A new restaurant that will be larger than the current one and will be on the first floor of a two-storey building. An exhibition area will be on the ground floor;

Extending one pond and creating two new ponds with a connecting canal to a wetland area that will provide a natural vegetative filtration system;

New internal roads and pathways to be constructed, along with a raised walkway.

Mr McKeown said works in the park in 2013/2014 found archaeological evidence of a small settlement “from the time of Christ up until the 7th Century”.

It plans to host a special exhibition about this encampment while also telling the post-glacial story of the colonisation of Ireland by plants, animals, and humans.

“We hope to make the park more iconic,” he said.

Annual visitor numbers have risen from 350,000 in 2010 to around 460,000 today. “We hope these new developments will get us over the 500,000 figure and closer to 600,000,” said Mr McKeown.