Fota Wildlife Park

Fota Wildlife Park is a 100 acre natural world park located on Fota Island, near Carrigtwohill, County Cork, Ireland. Opened in 1983, it's far an independently funded, no longer-for-profit charity that is one of the main tourism, natural world and conservation points of interest in Ireland. The park had an attendance of 455,559 site visitors in 2017, making it the 11th most popular paid attraction in Ireland for that year. Fota Island changed into the former home of the Smith Barry family, descendants of Normans who got here to Ireland in the 12th century.

While the circle of relatives’ lands had been in the beginning extra significant, they dwindled over time until they were restrained to Fota Island. The estate became bought to University College Cork in 1975. In the interim, Dublin Zoo had reached maximum improvement with the space available. So in 1979, the director of Dublin Zoo proposed to the Zoological Society of Ireland Council that a wildlife park should be established and the website at Fota Island became proposed. The equal yr it become officially agreed that the society could establish a wildlife park at Fota. University College Cork provided the land freed from rate beneath license agreement.