The Amazon World Zoo is located between Newport and Sandown on the Isle of Wight, England.
The zoo mostly features exotic animals from South America, including Giant Anteaters, Tamarins and Marmosets, Ocelots and Parrots. It also is home to the biggest collection of toucans in the United Kingdom. Despite holding nine species, including the rare Plate-billed Mountain-toucan, no serious attempts are made to breed their toucans, and none have access to outdoor aviaries. The zoo holds the only Brazilian Porcupine and Paca on public display in the UK, similarly these are kept in simplistic concrete enclosures designed to resemble the interior of a Mayan temple rather than a rainforest environment. However, Amazon World has had considerable success in breeding the Tamandua and two-toed sloth, both species that do not breed readily in other collections.
In 2005 the zoo was the subject of nationwide media coverage after a baby penguin was stolen from the zoo.
Read more about Amazon World Zoo: Penguin Theft
Famous quotes containing the words world and/or zoo:
“What is he buzzing in my ears?
‘Now that I come to die,
Do I view the world as a vale of tears?’
Ah, reverend sir, not I!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)