You’ll want some huge cash and useful resource to run your personal zoo. It’s extra of a ardour venture than a profit-driven enterprise.
Get insurance coverage and a licence. Write to your native authority about your want to open a zoo earlier than you apply for a licence.
The zoo should be an academic facility and meet conservation requirements.
There are round 330 zoos (together with aquariums/aquaria) within the UK, 45 per cent of that are privately owned. With native authorities solely liable for a small minority of zoos within the nation, certainly there’s a marketplace for privately proudly owning and working a zoo. However there could also be much more to it.
British entrepreneur Benjamin Mee famously purchased a failing zoo for £1.1 million in Devon to show it right into a profit-making enterprise. Mee reportedly spent £3,000 per week in payments, animal feed and wages, which suggests he wanted at the very least 60,000 guests a 12 months to interrupt even. His onerous work turned Dartmoor Zoological Park right into a money-making attraction, however Mee’s story could also be atypical. Right here’s what it’s good to get began.
Cash, and many it
A licence
Insurance coverage
Skilled employees
Animals
Primary guidelines for working a zoo
Know your ROI
Cash, and many it
It goes with out saying that it’s good to love animals to purchase a zoo, however an important factor is capital available. Zoos can price anyplace from lots of of hundreds to thousands and thousands of kilos. For instance, Animalarium, a small zoo in Wales was put up on the market in 2016 for £650,000, which included over 12 acres of land and 300 animal species. Utilities and feed prices can differ relying on the scale of the zoo and the varieties of animals you host. It prices £8,500 per day to run Paradise Wildlife Park, for instance, which provides as much as roughly £3.1 million per 12 months.
A licence
You have to to use for a licence to function a zoo to start out, and ensure the premises are compliant to any and all legal guidelines.
Apply to your native council for a licence if you happen to’re displaying wild animals to the general public for at the very least seven days out of the 12 months (and also you’re not a circus or pet store, however I feel that’s a given). Go together with the native authority the place most of your zoo will cowl. You could write to them and provides them two months’ discover that you simply’re planning to start out a zoo earlier than you apply for a licence. Give them particulars about:
The place the zoo is
What sort of animals you’ll maintain and what number of
The way you’ll take care of the animals
The way you’ll meet conservation requirements
Anticipated customer numbers
The place the entry and exit factors will likely be
Zoos are topic to common inspections by the native authority, which has the facility to situation hefty fines and even shut you down if requirements aren’t maintained.
You might be hit with a advantageous of as much as £2,500 if you happen to run a zoo with out a licence otherwise you don’t meet the necessities of the licence.
Don’t take it frivolously. It might result in a advantageous of as much as £1,000 if you happen to don’t show your zoo licence correctly or stop a zoo inspector from doing their job correctly.
That’s not the place the potential fines finish. South Lakes Zoo in Cumbria, for instance, was fined a complete of £255,000 for breaking well being and security legal guidelines when a Sumatran tiger mauled a zookeeper to demise.
Insurance coverage
To arrange for any sudden accidents and for the protection and care of the animals within the zoo, insurance coverage will likely be important. Specialist zoo insurance coverage may help when beginning out, protecting something from product and public legal responsibility insurance coverage, to specialist cowl for lack of sights, lack of licence, worldwide transit of animals, worldwide cowl for workers, full theft, foot and mouth illness and chook flu, et cetera.
Insurers corresponding to Markel, Lycetts, LMRS Insurance coverage Providers and Peacock Insurance coverage Providers can present cowl.
Skilled employees
Zookeepers are important for any zoo. Salaries for educated employees ranges from £19,000 to £28,000, which may add up relying on the scale and variety of specialists you want. You’ll additionally want caretakers, ticket sellers, cleansing and catering employees, and administrative workplace staff to function a zoo that may cater to guests. On the plus facet, on-site cafes, eating places and present outlets may also be an added supply of revenue.
Animals
Proudly owning animals may be tough enterprise, particularly if you happen to’re trying to home unique wildlife. Zoos haven’t introduced or purchased animals straight from the wild because the Nineteen Seventies, until they’re rescued. Animals are both bred in captivity or traded between zoos, so getting animals into your zoo gained’t price you something. Nonetheless, caring for them within the type of offering meals, shelter and medical care are all costly. It’s possible you’ll must have veterinary employees on-site across the clock.
Primary guidelines for working a zoo
As a primary requirement, zoo house owners ought to shield their animals, feed them and design appropriate enclosures as per the Zoo Licensing Act of 1981.
Obligatory participation: a zoo should legally take part in at the very least one exercise outlined within the Act, both in conservation analysis, coaching, or breeding of untamed animals in captivity.
Promote training and consciousness: Zoos should educate the general public on conservation and biodiversity.
Accommodate animals correctly: The Act requires zoos to supply situations that fulfill the organic and conservation necessities of a species. You’ll be able to’t have tropical animals out in UK winter, or penguins out throughout summer time, for instance.
Escape countermeasures: Zoos are required to stop animals from escaping, and be ready within the unlikely occasion any species breaks out or is launched accidentally.
Pest management: Zoos are additionally required to stop the intrusion of pests and vermin.
Know your ROI
Shopping for and working a zoo is extra a ardour venture than a get-rich-quick enterprise for many. Finally, zoos are extra targeted on wildlife conservation than on revenue, so maintain that in thoughts from the outset. Round 90 per cent of the entire income for zoos comes from gate charges, so footfall is every part within the enterprise.
Chester Zoo is the UK’s hottest, managing 2.1 million visits in 2025. Ticket costs differ relying on dates and age, however an grownup ticket worth of £38.00 a ticket means the Zoo earned an approximate £63.1 million in income in 2024.
Zoos aren’t essentially a cash pit, nonetheless. The Paradise Wildlife Park, for instance, was purchased for £100,000 in 1984, however is now valued at £5 million, welcoming 200,000 guests a 12 months. If managed and marketed aggressively, a zoo may very well be a worthwhile enterprise.
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