WOW! From the 27th – 31st of July, we celebrated our best Open Days yet! They were a huge success with almost every session sold out. This year we welcomed 20,000 visitors over 5 days, a record number for the Sanctuary.
The weather was stunning, with sunny skies the whole time. It was the perfect weather for our guests to capture memories to last a lifetime, whilst learning all about our cats and the conservation projects that we support.
Our incredible keeper team were hard at work caring for our cats throughout the Open Days, delivering training sessions, setting up enrichment and even giving the cats tasty treats all whilst spending time with our guests and sharing their knowledge of all things big cats!
The Open Days consisted of many exciting shows, such as Wide Eye Falconry bird shows, A live music performance from One Drum, Animal Saving Animal’s dog display, and keeper talks. All of which were interactive and great fun for all the family! We even had a special surprise visit from our ambassador Paul Hollywood, CBBC’s One Zoo Three Aaron Whitnall and Director of Big Cats and Conservation Giles Clark
The Sanctuary also launched the ‘Project Lion’ fundraising campaign, which is to raise vital funds, allowing the Sanctuary to extend and renovate the main lion habitat as well as support conservation initiatives in Africa and Asia. Once this space is created, the Sanctuary hopes to bring Asiatic lions into our care.
We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has visited us and supported The Big Cat Sanctuary. By booking onto our Open Days, you have helped the Sanctuary support our four pillars: Welfare, Breeding, Education and Conservation and raise important funds to look after our cats and to support the work we do.
From all of us at the Sanctuary, we hope that everyone had a fantastic time seeing all our cats and we hope to welcome you back soon.
Our Open Days are an annual event, so our next set will be July 2023. Tickets will be released at the end of the year so be sure to keep an eye out to book.
Take part in one of our amazing animal experiences at The Big Cat Sanctuary including big cat experiences, photography experiences, safari lodges and overnight safari stays, ranger for a day experiences and our big cat afternoon tea with Paul Hollywood. You can also adopt a big cat and help the conservation efforts that support our amazing animals!