Thank you for your support

We wanted to say a massive thank you to all our guests, staff and supporters who have supported us throughout 2019!

As a charity, we rely heavily on the support of visitors, like you, to be able to fund the crucial projects we support globally.

This year, we welcomed plenty of new arrivals here at the zoo, but our conservation team have been busy working on projects too, both locally and elsewhere around the globe.

Kenya

Marwell’s main objective in Kenya remains focused on protecting vulnerable, small populations of Grevy’s zebra in remote and under resourced areas. Our ongoing programmes maintain a strong community-based approach; we have expanded our network to 24 scouts in 12 locations this year. This not only provides manpower for monitoring but creates greater inclusion of the communities we work in as well as their increased understanding of our conservation work.

An important project we ran in Kenya this year was providing supplementary hay to the wild Grevy’s zebra in South Horr. This action was taken to support them in their struggle to find enough food for themselves and to produce enough milk for their young foals. Over four months, a specially appointed hay monitor laid out hay near water sources where the animals visited at night. Our scouts were monitoring the uptake via camera traps and we could see that lactating females, often with their foals, would come to water and take the hay. The scouts also reported of births happening during this period. The feeding of hay meant for these new mothers, that they didn’t have to walk long distances between grazing and water. You helped us raise over £1,200 to support this cause!

Hampshire

We are also involved in conservation nearby and have undertaken two projects to support local wildlife.

Earlier this year our conservation team released a final 80 juvenile sand lizards, one the UK’s rarest reptiles, onto Eelmoor Marsh Site of Special Scientific Interest, near Farnborough. This was the last phase of a three-year release plan and research project at the site.

Very locally (within Marwell’s woodland) our conservation team also got to work creating a new eight-acre woodland. The aim of this project was, not only to provide browse for our animals, but to boost native wildlife. The project was in collaboration with the Woodland Trust and involved planting more than 7,000 trees!

Thanks to you, we can continue to work on these projects and continue to conserve species, and their habitats, locally and globally!