Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens animals given Christmas treats

Animals at an Oxfordshire wildlife park have been getting into the Christmas spirit this week.

Keepers at Cotswolds Wildlife Park and Gardens in Burford, which is home to nearly 100 different species, provided the animals with fir cones stuffed with grapes and stockings with mealworms inside.

Photographs taken at the Park also show head keeper Mark Godwin and his children, Molly and Henry, hanging up stockings for the rhinos.

Oxford Mail: Head Keeper Mark Godwin and his children, Molly and Henry, hung up stockings for the rhinos. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens Head Keeper Mark Godwin and his children, Molly and Henry, hung up stockings for the rhinos. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens

Although the Park is closed to visitors on Christmas Day, work behind the scenes does not slow down during the festive period and keepers continue to provide care and stimulation to the animals.

Natalie Horner, Head of Primates and Small Mammals at Cotswold Wildlife Park, told the Oxford Mail Christmas Day is “pretty much like any other day” for staff at the Park.

She said: “The keepers are here making sure the animals are fed, watered, looked after to their usual high standards. Christmas Day is usually a bit shorter for us so that we can go home and start our own Christmas celebrations but our main priority is obviously making sure the animals are okay.

“We do enrichment everyday throughout the year for the animals as part of our daily role but at Christmas we can get more creative and a bit silly with it.

“We have lots of Christmas stockings, crackers and presents that we can hide the animals favourite treats inside. For some of them, like the meerkats, they love to investigate anything and everything you give to them.

Oxford Mail: Tamandua male Tito with Primate and Small Mammal Keeper Hayley. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens Tamandua male Tito with Primate and Small Mammal Keeper Hayley. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens

“Christmas crackers, for example, we can hide meal worms, crickets and locusts in there and it is really fun to see the meerkats rip it open to find the food inside.

“For our more intelligent species, like our primates, we can give them a puzzle feeder or suspend something from their exhibit, like a stocking. It is always interesting to see how they figure out that enrichment item and how they interact with it.”

Other enrichment activities the Park has done for animals in past has included burying items in the snow and building snowmen with hidden treats inside.

Oxford Mail: A ring-tailed lemur enjoying their Christmas enrichments. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens A ring-tailed lemur enjoying their Christmas enrichments. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens

Both the festive themed and wider enrichment activities are not without good reason and serve an important wellbeing purpose for the animals in the Park’s care.

Mrs Horner explained that although the Park does it’s best to care for the animals they are still captive and so it is important to “spark stimulation” to ensure they remain “mentally and physically healthy”.

These activities also serve a dual purpose for the park’s human visitors as they prompt questions about the species, their natural environments and behaviours.

Such questions allow the keepers to educate people about the animals and the various conservation projects the Park is involved with around the world.

Check out more pictures below:

Ring-tailed lemurs enjoying their Christmas enrichments of fir cones stuffed with grapes. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens

Oxford Mail: Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens

Oxford Mail: Henry was modelling his elf outfit. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens Henry was modelling his elf outfit. Picture: Cotswold Wildlife Park & Gardens