Chester Zoo is a zoo in Upton-by-Chester, Cheshire, England. Chester Zoo was opened in 1931 by George Mottershead and his family. The zoo is one of the UK's largest zoos at and the zoo has a total land holding of approximately .
Chester Zoo is operated by the North of England Zoological Society, a registered charity founded in 1934. The zoo receives no government funding and is the most-visited wildlife attraction in Britain with more than 2 million visitors in 2019. In 2007 Forbes described the zoo as one of the fifteen best zoos in the world. In 2017 and more recently, 2024, the zoo was named as the best zoo in the UK and as also regarded as the third best in the world by TripAdvisor.
History
Early history
The Mottershead family's market garden business was based in Shavington near Crewe. George Mottershead collected animals such as lizards and insects that arrived with exotic plants imported by the business. A visit to Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester as a boy in 1903 fuelled his developing interest in creating a zoo of his own.
Mottershead was wounded in the First World War and spent several years in a wheelchair. Despite this, his collection of animals grew and he began to search for a suitable home for his zoo. He chose Oakfield Manor in Upton-by-Chester, which was a country village then but now is a suburb of Chester. He bought Oakfield Manor for £3,500 in 1930. The house had of gardens and provided easy access to the railways and to Manchester and Liverpool. There were local objections, but Mottershead prevailed, and Chester Zoo opened to the public on 10 June 1931. The first animals were displayed in pens in the courtyard.
An Ordnance Survey inch-a-mile map published in 1936 shows the area around as farmland and villages and marks the present Zoo area north of Oakfield as "Butter Hill".
Rapid expansion followed after the Second World War, despite the difficulty of sourcing materials. Mottershead had to be resourceful; the polar bear exhibit (1950) was built from recycled wartime road blocks and pillboxes. "Always building" was the zoo's slogan at the time. Mottershead received the OBE, an honorary degree of MSc, and served as President of the International Union of Zoo Directors. He died in 1978 aged 84.
Zoo design Mottershead wanted to build a zoo without the traditional Victorian iron bars to cage the animals. He was influenced by the ideas of Carl Hagenbeck, who invented the modern zoo concept and by Heini Hediger, a pioneer of ethology.
At Chester, Mottershead took Hagenbeck's idea for moats and ditches as an alternative to cage bars, and extended their use throughout the zoo, often with species that Hagenbeck had not considered. For example, when chimpanzees were released into their new enclosure at Chester in 1956, a group of grassy islands, they were separated from visitors by no more than a strip of water. Nobody knew then if chimps could swim. It turned out that they could not, and today the chimp islands are a centrepiece of Chester Zoo.
In 1986 the zoo was enclosed with a fence, in line with the Zoo Licensing Act 1981.
21st century
Realm of the Red Ape, an Indonesian-forest-themed exhibit, featuring threatened Sumatran and Bornean orangutan, opened in May 2007.
In January 2009, Chester Zoo unveiled Natural Vision, a £225 million plan to transform itself into the largest conservation attraction in Europe. The first phase of the plan was to be a £90 million, enclosed African-rainforest-themed sanctuary containing a band of gorillas and a troop of chimpanzees, as well as okapi and a variety of tropical birds, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrates, moving freely among lush vegetation. It included a water ride to take visitors through the exhibit. Natural Vision was to eventually include a 90-room hotel, a Conservation College, and a revamped main entrance that would link the zoo to a marina to be developed on zoo land, all to be completed by 2018. Plans went before the public for comment in June 2009.
The projected Heart of Africa bio-dome, along with plans for the hotel, were shelved in 2011 due to the loss of £40m potential funding when the North West Regional Development Agency was abolished.
In December 2012, planning permission was gained for a later phase of the Natural Vision masterplan. One of the largest zoo developments in Europe, Islands at Chester Zoo is a £40 million redevelopment project to extend the zoo's footprint and recreate six island habitats of Southeast Asia. As of 2017 it is now open.
A 600,000 square foot nature reserve was opened in April 2018. The reserve sits outside the boundary of the main zoo and is free for people to enter.
In October 2018, two Indian elephant calves (Nandita, aged three years, and Aayu, aged 18 months), died of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV). From 1995 on, this virus disease has caused many deaths of Indian elephants across the world in zoos and in the wild.
On 15 December 2018, an electrical fault caused a fire to break out at the Monsoon Forest Habitat. The zoo had to be evacuated and was closed. Fifteen fire crews attended the zoo along with two rapid response units and an ambulance. All mammals were accounted for and one person was treated for the effects of smoke inhalation. Some birds, frogs, fish and small insects were killed in the blaze. The zoo reopened on Sunday 16 December 2018.
Chester Zoo monorail was an internal transport system for visitors from 1991 to 2019, but was closed, as it had become unreliable and covered less than half the zoo due to the zoo's expansion to over . Land from the monorail was to be used for a new attraction called Heart of Africa, an open African savannah habitat and vulture aviary.
In March 2024, Chester Zoo announced the arrival of two snow leopards as part of a global conservation breeding programme. The zoo also announced the opening of a new Himalayan habitat for two big cats. The habitat is also home to red pandas, and a number of birds, including Himalayan monals.
In July 2025, the zoo announced the birth of its first snow leopard cub, a female named Bheri.
The Heart of Africa exhibit opened in April 2025. The 22.5 acre (nine hectare) savannah exhibit is designed to replicate the grasslands of Africa. The exhibit houses 57 species, including giraffes, zebras, naked mole-rats and 15,000 locusts.
The zoo are also, at the same time, developing The Reserve Hotel project, a collection of 51 lodges, restaurant and access into the zoo.
Management structure
The North of England Zoological Society (NEZS) is the organisation that runs Chester Zoo. It was formed in 1931 by the zoo's founder, George Mottershead.
The zoo is managed by a team led by CEO Jamie Christon DL and he reports to the Board of Trustees. Christon is tasked with focusing on the unified strategy which supports the Strategic Development Plan and Conservation Plan. The plan includes the development of Heart of Africa, The Reserve Hotel, new education facilities, The Square wedding venue, and from 2028 the development of African Forests. The executive focuses on education change and DEAI through its people and culture. Chester Zoo leads in public affairs and has influenced heavily at the heart of UK government.
The zoo employs over 650 permanent staff, increasing to over 1,000 during the main summer period.
Layout and facilities
The zoo is bisected by a public bridleway, Flag Lane (formerly the Millennium Cycle Path). For many years, a single bridge (now called Elephants' Bridge), drivable by zoo vehicles and powered wheelchairs, near the elephant exhibit was the only crossing place within the grounds. A second crossing, passable by pedestrians and mobility scooters, called Bats' Bridge, opened in April 2008 near the Twilight Zone (now called Fruit Bat Forest), has improved the ability of visitors to circulate. The opening of the new bridge also meant that visitors are now able to view on foot animals that were previously visible only from the monorail, as well as panoramic views of the zoo itself.
For a long time, the public entrance was at the east end off Caughall Road. In the summer of 1995, the public entrance moved to the north side with dedicated access off the A41 Chester By-Pass. A brown sign which gave visitors directions to the new entrance was installed at the junction of the former entrance, and curiously, it remained there until the 2010s. Thus, the zoo is entered in the 'newer' part west of Flag Lane, near the elephants, and the old car parks at the east end are being built over with service, admin and educational buildings. The new entrance was re-modelled in 2012 to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. The zoo owns land outside the public area, and uses that land to grow food for its herbivorous animals.
Chester's catering facilities include Bembé Kitchen (formerly the Tsavo Café) near the main entrance which opened in 2006 to replace the former Oasis Café (formerly Mpila Snack Bar until the early 1980s). June's Pavilion (formerly the Jubilee Café and latterly the Ark Restaurant) is on the west of the zoo and Manado Street Kitchen is found on Sulawesi in the Islands exhibit. The Oakfield is a restaurant in a Victorian mansion house near the lion enclosure, and along with the Acorn Bar, are both used for private functions as well as catering to zoo visitors. There are three locations for food and drink in the Heart of Africa exhibit, including Pamoja Village.
There are children's play areas, shops, kiosks and several picnic lawns around the zoo. A second pedestrian entrance is located in the southeast corner of the zoo behind Oakfield House.
In 2025, the zoo was divided into colour zones to ease navigating the expansive site. The Yellow Zone includes the zoo's elephants, monkeys, bats and spectacled bears. The Pink Zone includes the Islands exhibit, housing animals such as southern cassowaries, Sumatran tigers and binturongs. The Orange Zone includes the Heart of Africa exhibit, housing eastern black rhinoceros, meerkats and flamingos. The Green Zone includes The Spirit of the Jaguar exhibit, as well as chimpanzees, aye-ayes, okapis and sloths. The Blue Zone includes the Dragons in Danger habitat, Himalayas and Madagascar, featuring animals such as lemurs, snow leopards and Komodo dragons.
Species and animals
Chester Zoo holds one of the largest and most diverse zoological collections in the UK with around 30,000 animals from over 500 species. The collection includes representatives from all the vertebrate classes as well as many invertebrate groups. Rare species on exhibit include Persian onager, Coquerel's sifaka, great hornbill, Boelen's python and tuatara. For all these species, among others, Chester Zoo is the only UK holder.
The Zoo's botanical collection includes more than 400 threatened plant species and five National Plant Collections (Copiapoa, Matucana, Nepenthes, Pleurothallidinae spp. and Turbinicarpus.)
The table below shows the number of species and animals held by Chester Zoo according their 2025 animal inventory:
Group Number of species Number of animals Mammals 98 1585 Birds 144 1621 Reptiles 58 521 Amphibians 26 1129 Fish 78 10044 Invertebrates 103 14699 Total 507 29599
Conservation At the end of 2007, over half the species at the Zoo appeared on the IUCN Red List and 155 were classified as threatened species. 134 species were kept as part of a managed captive breeding programme. The Zoo manages the studbooks for Congo buffalo, jaguar, blue-eyed cockatoo, Madagascan tree boa, gemsbok (all ESB species), eastern black rhinoceros, Ecuadorian amazon parrot, Mindanao writhe-billed hornbill, Sumatran tiger and Rodrigues flying fox (all EEP species). At the end of 2015, Chester Zoo became the first zoo outside of New Zealand to breed the tuatara.
Animal exhibits
Heart of Africa