Animal life goes on at Doncaster’s empty wildlife park

Three teams of rangers have been kept on to feed and water the residents while the park is closed to visitors. Around 750,000 guests can be expected in a normal year.

Colin Northcott, deputy carnivore leader at the Doncaster attraction, said the atmosphere in the meerkat and African painted dog enclosures was surreal. “It’s quite striking that all I can hear are the dogs and the birds in the woods,” he said.

“Normally this would be a busy area with guests everywhere and children playing together. It’s very odd that we are in this kind of limbo.”

The creatures were also having to adjust to a change of personnel at feeding time.

“Previously we would looked after 2-3 animals each per day but now we’re looking after pretty much all of them,” Mr Northcott said. “Although it’s fantastic to interact with the ones that we wouldn’t see every day, it’s still a lot of hard work.”

The park closed at the end of last weekend, and its chief executive, John Minion, said: “Even the animals know that something has changed.

“Our dedicated animal team will not just be feeding and cleaning out the animals but making sure that they have environmental enrichment to keep them happy.”

The park’s menagerie includes some of the world’s most beautiful and endangered species, including Amur leopards, Amur tigers – one of which gave birth to three cubs five years ago – and Britain’s only polar bears. The walk-through layout brings visitors almost face to face with some of them.

Some of the creatures are celebrities in their own right, not least the pride of 13 lions rescued in 2010 from a diet of scraps in a Romanian zoo and now resident in a purpose-built seven-acre reserve.