New arrivals and hot weather see visitors flocking to Cork's Fota Island Wildlife Park

Dozens of people were queuing outside Fota Wildlife Park before it opened last Friday, as the hot weather and new arrivals have seen a boost to visitor numbers.

There are multiple new babies at the wildlife park — including a bison calf born last week, a three-week-old baby giraffe who already stands six foot tall, and some tiny meerkat pups.

Senior ranger, Liam McConville, told The Echo: “The giraffe calf was a massive highlight for us.

“We’re all absolutely delighted, and people love coming to see the baby animals, it definitely pushes visitor numbers up compared to the same time last year.

“The weather brings everyone out — the temperature has been really good here because we’re on the harbour so we get a really nice breeze.

“We’re a key visitor attraction for East Cork, and we know that when the park is busy, everywhere else will be too, so it’s great to see a big crowd around the place.”

Kelsey, Archie, and Georgie O’Sullivan from Grenagh are regular visitors to the park — their grandmother Jacinta has an annual pass, and she looks after them during the summer holidays.

She said they have been coming down to the park for years with her grandchildren.

“It’s a great day out,” she said. “We’ve been coming years and when we started it was only small — now you could spend a whole day down here.”

For Rudy Mohamma’s daughters Karina and Dalia, the small playground area is the highlight of the day.

“If it wasn’t for my prompting they’d just stay playing in the sand all day,” she said.

They live in the city, and came out to Fota on the train that morning.

Karina’s favourite animal in the park is the ostrich, and they remarked that lots of the animals seemed to be lying in the shade due to the hot weather.

The Wheeler family, who were visiting from Fermanagh, and staying on Fota Island, said it was “amazing weather”, and that they were very excited to see the animals.

The O’Riordan, Deasy, Dorgan, Creedon, and Sheehan families were attending the park as a big group, with 18 children in total.

Their mothers have been friends for 20 years, having all graduated from nursing in UCC in 2008, and they commented “you make friends for life”.

They now live spread out across Cork, from West Cork to Whitechurch.