Marwell Zoo 2

Marwell zoo in Hampshire has one of the best collections of grazing animals, and this post focuses on those. They have everything from Rhinos down to small gazelles. In the large mixed African Experience paddock they have the White Rhino, Grevy's Zebra and Scimitar horned Oryx, along with a couple of Ostrich.

Marwell has a great record for breeding these endangered animals, in fact it holds the European stud book for Grevy's Zebra. They have a range of scarce and rare African antelopes in enclosures around the zoo, many of these not being widely represented in other zoos in the area.

From Asia the rare Anoa has several enclosures.

Marwell is on of the few zoos to hold Hartmanns Mountain Zebra, and infact not many zoos hold more than one species of Zebra.

Also in the hoof stock line there is a small herd of the endangered African Wild Ass, a strangely patterned animal, with the pale sandy colours of an Ass with the stripes on the legs like a Zebra.

Another species that is now starting to feature back in zoos after several years of not being that popular is the Roan Antelope, the one at Marwell shares its home with a second group of Grevy's Zebra.

One nice little feature is a walk through enclosure for Bennett's Wallaby, whilst not 'hoofstock' is a grazing animal so does feature here.

And to finish with the two Giraffe relatives, the widely represented Rothchild's Giraffe; probably the rarest of the giraffe subspecies is perhaps the most widely distributed in UK zoos. The second species is the lovely Okapi, a rare animal from the Congo basin, Marwell has had a brilliant record of breeding these over the years, although not always very showy, I was pleased to get a shot of one with just enough light to make the photo work.