The National Wildlife Conservation Park is a proposed extension to Bristol Zoo

Bristol Zoo

Bristol Zoo is a zoo in the city of Bristol in South West England. The zoo's stated mission is "Bristol Zoo Gardens maintains and defends biodiversity through breeding endangered species, conserving threatened species and habitats and promoting a wider understanding of the natural...

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In 2008 Bristol Zoo Gardens announced plans to submit plans to South Gloucestershire

South Gloucestershire

South Gloucestershire is a unitary district in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, in South West England.-History:The district was created in 1996, when the county of Avon was abolished, by the merger of former area of the districts of Kingswood and Northavon...

 Council for the development of a new 55-hectare National Wildlife Conservation Park (NWCP). It is expected to cost for the circa £70 million and is scheduled to open in 2012.

It will be on the northern outskirts of Bristol

Bristol

Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, close to Junction 17 of the M5

M5 motorway

The M5 is a motorway in England. It runs from a junction with the M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Bromwich and west of Birmingham through Sandwell Valley...

, opposite Cribbs Causeway

Cribbs Causeway

Cribbs Causeway is a road in South Gloucestershire, England, just north of Bristol, which has given its name to a large out-of-town shopping centre, including retail parks and an enclosed shopping centre known as The Mall...

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The Park has been designed to link specific ecosystems and conservation programmes across the world, and will be split into biomes, representing species found only in specific habitats. Some of the biomes to be included are Congo Basin Tropical Forest, Central American Swamp, African Savannah, Sumatra Tropical Forest, Nepal Riverine Forest, Coral Reef, British Ancient Woodland and British Wetlands.

The species list for each ecosystem has not yet been finalised, but is likely to include Manatee

Manatee

Manatees are large, fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as sea cows...

s, Crocodile

Crocodile

A crocodile is any species belonging to the family Crocodylidae . The term can also be used more loosely to include all extant members of the order Crocodilia: i.e...

s, Bonobo

Bonobo

The bonobo , Pan paniscus, previously called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often, the dwarf or gracile chimpanzee, is a great ape and one of the two species making up the genus Pan. The other species in genus Pan is Pan troglodytes, or the common chimpanzee...

s, Okapi

Okapi

The okapi , Okapia johnstoni, is a giraffid artiodactyl mammal native to the Ituri Rainforest, located in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Central Africa...

, Bongo

Bongo (antelope)

The western or lowland bongo, Tragelaphus eurycerus eurycerus, is a herbivorous, mostly nocturnal forest ungulate and among the largest of the African forest antelope species....

, Sumatran tiger

Sumatran Tiger

The Sumatran tiger is a tiger subspecies that inhabits the Indonesian island of Sumatra and has been classified as critically endangered by IUCN in 2008 as the population is projected at 176 to 271 mature individuals, with no subpopulation having an effective population size larger than 50...

, Orangutan

Orangutan

Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

, Giraffe

Giraffe

The giraffe is an African even-toed ungulate mammal, the tallest of all extant land-living animal species, and the largest ruminant...

, Zebra

Zebra

Zebras are several species of African equids united by their distinctive black and white stripes. Their stripes come in different patterns unique to each individual. They are generally social animals that live in small harems to large herds...

, Warthog

Warthog

The Warthog or Common Warthog is a wild member of the pig family that lives in grassland, savanna, and woodland in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the past it was commonly treated as a subspecies of P...

, Kudu

Kudu

The kudus are two species of antelope of the genus Tragelaphus:*Lesser Kudu, Tragelaphus imberbis*Greater Kudu, Tragelaphus strepsiceros- Etymology :...

, African hunting dog, Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros

Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....

, Brown bear

Brown Bear

The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...

 and Wolf.

Development of the Park has been supported by the South West of England Regional Development Agency through a grant of £1.5million.

External links

• National Wildlife Conservation Park web site