What a year it's been!

2017 has been another great year at Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. We have welcomed new animals, expanded the zoo facilities, held some fantastic events and proudly won some exciting awards.

This year we welcomed 7 Aldabra Giant tortoises: Hogarth, Terrence, Blue, Hissy, Stevie, XJ and Esmerelda to the Zoo family. The Tortoises were kindly donated by Nigel Marvin, who visited the zoo to officially open the purpose-built Giant Tortoise house. We also welcomed 2 Zebra: Polly and Nola, to join Zebedee. Later in the year we welcomed Caspian, a Steller’s Sea Eagle, our largest bird of prey. All of our new arrivals have happily settled in and are now firmly part of the ark family.

As well as building a new Giant Tortoise enclosure, at the start of the year we also opened our new Catering Facilities including the main Food Barn serving hot and cold meals with indoor cafe seating. Proving a place to stop and settle for lunch after a busy morning at the zoo. We opened up 3 refurbished eatery points around the zoo, allowing visitors to grab food and drink on the go. One exciting new change to the indoor play areas was the upgrade of our Rainbow slide, 6.6m of mulitcoloured fun. Come to the zoo in 2018 for your birthday party in our new Party Feast Room. We can now provide a private area for your little ones to feast in between swinging and sliding around our ark adventures.

2017 has also been an exciting year for animal births. The most notable of which was our baby Giraffe Gus, born on May 11th. Watch that breath-taking moment he was born. Now almost one year old he is certainly growing up fast, keep your eyes peeled for his birthday celebrations in 2018. Throughout the year we have also welcomed a baby Wallaby named Brenda, a baby Llama named Crash and a Bison named Luna. As well as 2 baby Red Deer, 2 Reindeer, several Meerkats, a Box Turtle and several tiny Leopard Tortoises. Come and visit us in 2018 to see how much they have all grown.

This year has also been a huge year for Noah's Ark, winning 2 Gold Awards in the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards. We were awarded Gold for our Sustainable Tourism efforts and for our Outstanding Customer Service. We have since been nominated as finalists in the Sustainable Tourism category for the South West Tourism awards and for the Best Digital Presence in the National Farm Attractions Network Awards. Stay tuned over the next couple months to find out where we place.

2017 was a year of exciting new events here at Noah's Ark. We held our first African Carnival for World Elephant Day and Africa Week. We welcomed the team from Unika Dance events who put on a wonderfully colourful carnival here at the zoo and we raised a whopping £907 for our chosen charities throughout the week. This year also marked our first evening event. The Somerset Sunset event welcomed families after hours to the zoo for a private tour, special Giraffe encounters and a tasty meal.

One particularly special moment that sticks out in our minds this year was the Zoo Engagement. Kit proposed to Abbie in the centre of the maze and their family took part in a Giraffe Encounter to remember.

We're looking forward to 2018 and another exciting year at the zoo. We already have some exciting plans in store including another adults only evening event for Valentine’s Day. Join us on February 14th for a fun-filled evening meeting our zoo couples, talks, animal feeding and a yummy 3 course meal. Stay tuned in 2018 for the exciting unveiling of our new state-of-the-art Tapir, Capybara and Mara house.