Lions are seen as very noble creatures with huge manes of fur, and baby lions, cute and the type that you want to take home with you, although lions are also seen as very aggressive animals, murderous and scary. Our lions are very placid to everyone around them, and for that matter we have recently opened the enclosure up to a drive-in enclosure. Lions can grow up to 48 inches in height, 3 meters in length and 350 pounds in weight! They are possibly our largest animals here at Laurel - Wood. Lions eat up to 75 pounds of food per meal and are fed 3 times everyday, their diet consists of; wildebeest, buffalo, deer, wild boar, grass and some fruit; they eat almost exactly the same as what our tigers are fed on. One of the main attractions in the lion enclosure are our baby lions which stagger around the grass plain, most of our mothers in the enclosure nurture their young until they are old enough to look after themselves, although some mothers neglect their baby's, (this rarely happens at Laurel - Wood, we have only ever had one case of this, although in the wild this can be very common.) To ensure that our lions are comfortable we have provided them with a very large grassland, the size of their natural wandering ground in the wild, 6 different leveled platforms placed around their enclosure for the tigers to climb onto or under and when fed they have to climb to some of these levels or chase a 'robot' with their food on the back to make the lions 'work' for their food.
Our enclosure for our monkeys was inspired by Longleat Safari Park, and so this is another enclosure where visitors are welcome to drive through and have monkeys clamber on top of their cars. Monkeys are herbivores and, whilst they are famously known to each bananas, are fed on a diet of apples, oranges and carrots, (our spider monkeys are fed seeds and fruit rather than fruit and vegetables.) Another food which we put in their food bowls high in the trees is honey. Monkeys have recently been found to love honey and scoop it up with their hands, so don't be surprised if, after driving through the monkeys, you have sticky roofs and windows! Our zoo provides our monkeys with a lot of trees, we have managed to even plant three Menziesii trees, the tenth tallest tree specimen in Britain for our monekys to climb, as well as many ropes, tree swings, tightropes and hanging beds for our monkeys to swing on and feel happy at Laurel Wood!
