Woburn Safari Park is a safari park located in Woburn, Bedfordshire  in the UK. Visitors to the park can drive through the large animal exhibits, which contain species such as White Rhino, Elephants, Tigers and Black Bears.

History

Woburn Safari Park first opened in 1970, established by the 13th Duke of Bedford on the grounds of his estate, Woburn Abbey, as a means to help improve the financial position of the estate and restore the Abbey, which had fallen into disrepair during the second world war. The 11th Duke of Bedford had been president of the Zoological Society and had introduced various species such as American Bison, Deer, Antelope, Lion and Tiger to the park.
Squirrel Monkey in the walkthrough, in the Woburn leisure centre.
Animal species and conservation
Rothschild Giraffes are almost extinct in the wild, but Woburn has many.

The park enables animals to roam freely while visitors drive through their enclosures. The species held in the park include Rhinoceros, Eland, Scimitar Horned Oryx, Lechwe, Gemsbok, Giraffe, Ankole, Zebra, Elephant, Camel, Bison, Bongo, Lions, Tigers, Wolves, Black Bear, Drills and Patas monkeys and Barbary apes.
Animal in the leisure park include lemurs, squirrel monkeys, wallabys and emus, penguins, goats, ponys, seals, reptiles including snakes, and some free ranging marmosets. The park is committed to animal conservation and is involved in international breeding programs to help save endangered species.
The park has had recent success (October 2006) breeding Rothschild Giraffe, an endangered sub-species of Giraffe.
In recent years under the management of Dr Jake Veasey, considerable progress has been made to enhance Woburn Safari Park's conservation activities. Woburn Safari Park manages the Eastern Bongo breeding programme in Europe, one of the rarest large mammals in Africa, and has recently constructed one of the world's largest hoofstock facilities; the African Ungulate Conservation Centre. Most recently it has constructed an innovative Asian elephant facility designed by Dr Veasey. In 2007, Woburn Safari Park become the largest fundraiser for EAZA's Madagascar in-situ conservation campaign.


Other features

Other features of Woburn Safari Park include an African Ungulate (hoofed animal) Conservation Centre as a focal point for conservation and breeding programs for endangered African species, believed to be the largest such facility in Europe. The park also has a 40-acre (160,000 m2) leisure area featuring an Elephant Encounter area, Sea lion Displays and Birds of Prey demonstrations. There are also play facilities for young children, a large gift shop and a restaurant.
Unknown to many visitors, there is a public footpath that runs along many of the animal enclosures. From a short distance you can view many of the exhibits, such as elephants for free.
Woburn Safari Park is part of the Duke of Bedford's estate and when combined with the acreage of the deer park which surrounds the safari park (home to the endangered Pere David deer), it represents the largest ex-situ conservation facility in Europe and the first 'captive' breeding facility to rescue a species from extinction in the wild with its success with the Pere David deer. Woburn was also instrumental in saving the Mongolian wild horse. Currently Dr Jake Veasey of Woburn Safari Park manages the European Endangered species Programme (EEP) for the critically endangered Eastern Bongo.
In 2008, Woburn will open its new Asian elephant facility which boasts numerous innovations to optimise elephant welfare and conservation.

 

Roaming around in Woburn Safari was an absolutely awesome experience. It was the first time in my life when I found myself in a moving cage(in my car, lol) whereas all the wild animals were freely wandering around me ! We saw different wild animals having origins from all over the world and some were from my country, India. The entry ticket was 20 pounds. We were 7 of us. The opening hours are - morning 9 to 5. The ticket booths are a bit inside after one enters the main gate. There were 2 to 3 small queues of cars for buying the tickets. Once we bought the tickets and got in we drove slowly along the other cars in the queue and almost immediately started spotting animals. One good thing about the Woburn safari is that it is made in such a way that one hardly misses any animals. The reason being, the separation of different species of animals into different locations and these locations being isolated from one another using gates. As soon as we entered, we spotted rhinos and a peculiar kind of animal which looked like a deer and was white in colour with curled horns. Then we came across a caged gate which had images of tigers on it and read tigers are dangerous animals. After a few minutes of us entering the gate we spotted a tiger not very far from us. It was munching on a big piece of meat. On seeing the tigers, the queue of cars slowed down to take pictures of the beautiful animal. Luckily after sometime we spotted a second tiger approaching the first one. They were quite relaxed and didn't seem to mean any harm. However the people who were too keen to get a good picture and hence opened their car's windows were very cautious. I guess there were only 2 tigers. However they were very well visible and could be spotted easily due to the way they were placed, as mentioned previously. There were exit gates to go out of the tiger's arena. The arena was pretty vast. We spotted 2 bears out of which 1 was lazily yawning and the other seemed to have just woken from his sleep. The latter crossed the road just behind the car which was behind us! As we slowly moved ahead, we spotted a wolf which was fast asleep. Then came a bunch of around 10 Lions. They were in a group. I couldn't capture them in pictures properly as they seemed to be on a platue and the road was going down hill adjacent of the platue. But still, I managed to capture them quite well. I don't remember if there was a gate which separated the Lions from the next animals we saw. But I think there must be one as we spotted Zebras. By the way I think it would be inappropriate to use the word "spotted" as they were right in front of our car blocking our way ! They were so beautiful with the crisp black stripes on the white background. I remember telling Holly, who was driving,  that, they usually run in herds randomly, when chased, so that the predator gets confused watching the motion of stripes which forms some kind of optical illusion ! After this we saw some peculiar double humped camels. They were a bit shorter and darker from the ones I saw in India. I think I also saw some huge hirsuite cow link animals and then Jirrafs. Before the arena where we found Jirrafs, there was a diversion which led into another arena which I believe contained Monkeys. However, we did not go that way. After finishing the safari by car, we parked the car in the parking area which was huge. We also saw a mini tour train. There was a small lake in which people were sailing on boats which were made like ducks. We took a break near the lake and as we were hungry by then, we had some sandwiches, fruits and chips. Ravi had prepared the mint / Pudding chutney to be spread on the bread along with butter n grated cheese and slices of tomatoes. After this we took a look break in a cafe adjacent to the lake. After this we went to an arena which is called "Birds in action". It was a circular arena with sand in the centre and one semicircumference contained stairs for sitting and the other circumference was used for the show. This was showed by 2 men American was a splendid show which consisted of 2 or 3 very beautiful birds called kakakuas and parakeets. They were very well trained. The presenters presented the show very well with a lot of humour in between. While buying the tickets, we were handed over with a map of the safari with the whole schedule. We were following the schedule and would recommend you to do it as well. I don't quite remember if we missed anything, though we started a bit late. After "Birds in action", we headed towards the Elephant show. 2 Elephants were brought into a muddy arena in Thurdays open. As far as I remember, both the Elephants were brought from India. One of them was called Raja which means King. In all the shows in Woburn Safari, the presenters were very well spoken and very well equipped with good audio equipment. While presenting they also mentioned how animals and birds were in danger of poaching and other various things and requested the audience to donate money so that they could use that money in the favour of the endangered animals and birds. The Elephant show was also very entertaining and popular, where the Elephants showed off their skills. It was a full house. I don't quite remember the sequence in which we attended the shows. We also attended a carnivorous bird show. 2 girls with mics demonstrated the skills of the birds and they provided a lot of information about the birds. It was in one of these sessions that I came to know that the eye balls of the owls don't rotate like ours or like other animals. Hence, rather than rotating the eye balls, they have an incredible ability of turning their heads in very high angles, if not 360 degrees ! This is how they spot their preys and food. Towards the end of the of the show, Shruti, Lipika, Prachi and my mom headed to watch the Penguin and the seals show. However since me and Ravi stayed at the carnivorous bird show, we got late for the Penguin show ! However we managed to see some tiny penguins. I don't quite remember seeing dolphins there. I don't quite remember when, but we also saw Ostriches and loads of Australian Kangaroos in the open. I remember telling Holly that that the largest cell in the world is nothing but an Ostrich's egg ! And she was quite surprised on hearing that. We also saw some tiny monkeys. The monkeys were very small in size. They looked like a bonzai version of monkeys. A girl with an American accent was giving information about them and was answering the questions asked by audiences. I remember an Indian guy aged around 21 to 24 asking a super intelligent question to her. He asked, "I see a ball lying in that corner", in a very serious tone. The girl said "Oh I see..". She then paused and didn't know what to say but eventually said, "One of the monkeys must have thrown it there. Let it be there" ! 
After this we went to a place which was filled with loads of small and colourful birds. Overall, it was a very good trip and just for 20 pounds! It was really worth the money.

 

UK's longest safari and adventure park

 

	Season	Dates	Safari Park Opening Times	Adult	Child (3-15 years)	Senior Citizens	Family (2 adults + 2 children)
Now	Main Season	01/03/10 - 31/10/10	OPEN DAILY 10am - 5pm (last entry) Leisure Area closes 6pm	£18.50	£13.50	£15.50	£58.00
	Winter Season	06/11/10 - 27/02/11	OPEN WEEKENDS ONLY 11am - 3pm (last entry) Leisure Area closes 4pm	£11.00	£8.50	£9.50	£35.00
	Craft Fair	TBA	10am - 5pm (last entry) Fair and Safari Park closes at 6pm	£TBA	£TBA	£TBA	N/A

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     Main attractions at Woburn Safari

 

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   How to get to Woburn Safari ?

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References

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www.woburn.co.uk