Set in 33 acres of beautiful woodland with stunning views of the surrounding countryside and a fantastic collection of animals, you can easily immerse yourself in Dartmoor Zoo.
The animals include tigers, lions, lynx, jaguar, wolves, tapirs, capybaras, racoons, meerkats, monkeys, a fantastic collection of bugs and reptiles and plenty of natural open spaces for visitors to simply enjoy the surroundings.
Dartmoor Zoological Park came into being in its current form in 2006 when the Mee family came across Dartmoor Wildlife Park, a dilapidated zoo with a poor reputation and in massive financial difficulty.
The family bought the zoo, saved the animals, and fought to re-open a year later - a story well documented in the film 'We Bought A Zoo'.
Following a Crowdfunding campaign in 2014, the zoo has completed its conversion into a charity, giving it security for the future and enabling Ben to realise his dream to transform the zoo into a centre of excellence for research, conservation, and education.
The zoo is now well on the way, having established the Dartmoor Institute of Animal Science and partnering with universities including us here in Plymouth, researching areas such as cognition, behaviour, conservation and animal welfare, and social science projects such as visitor attitudes.