Our park, a member of the Normandy Park and Garden Club, since 2004, is a unique combination of the animal and plant worlds.
Our aim is for our animals to be integrated into a natural environment, and so the 10 hectares making up the park are laid out as themed gardens. Each garden creates an atmosphere recalling the natural environment where the animal species live…Tropical forest, African Savannah, Australian bush…Just the job for those who like travelling to far-flung places and photographing wildlife!
From the Garden of the Three Continents to the Exotic Garden
Visitors entering the zoo through the western gate go straight into the tropical forest, plunging right into its atmosphere…In the shelter of the giant Catalpa or Ailanthus leaves, they set off towards the Australian bush, walking between grasses and eucalyptus trees. A few steps more…and we’re off to Polynesia with its palm trees, banana trees and bamboo bushes, all with different sized leaves. By the wooden picnic shelters, the flower-laden pond is showing off its water lilies. The Garden of the Three Continents lives up to its promise, leading visitors to the exotic garden at the reception. Between banana trees, sacred bamboo, palm trees and catalpas, the macaws with their shimmering plumage set the tone…Your trip around Champrepus Zoo can commence. Off to the wooden bridge…
The Asian Garden
This is a new garden for Asian species such as the yellow-cheeked gibbons. For the time being, Musella, called “golden lotus” by the Yuma Indians, Stewartia with their wild-rose-like flowers, or birch trees with their distinctive bark, are becoming established in the middle of the Young bamboo plantation. The gibbons, who arrived in Champrepus last year, are quite the center of attention. They show off their acrobatics, putting on quite a performance!
The Tropical Aviary
Flashes of colour in the subtropical gardens. First plunge into the South American aviary: the dazzling reds, yellows, greens and blues of the macaws and the scarlet of the ibises, shine out amongst the greens of the tree ferns.
Le Flamingo Marsh
During this time, imperturbable, the Chilean flamingos move slowly across their own personal marshes. Their delicate gait is only rivalled by the flowers surrounding them: horsetail, purple loosestrife, forget-me-not and iris…
The Garden of Scented Plants
Just a stone’s throw from the mini farm, the azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs and camellias give off their subtle perfumes. Welcome to the Garden of Scented Plants…
The Wild Madagascan Gardens
We all know that everything grows on Madagascar. Everything – or almost everything – also grows in Champrepus’s very own “Madagascar”: the blue pods of the descaisneas or “dead man’s fingers” and the impressive Ailanthus leaves put on their show around the flower-laden ponds. The scent of the Cape water hawthorn follows visitors as they stroll around. We guarantee that you will really feel that you’re on a different continent as you visit the lemurs’ paradise!
The Grassland Garden
Acacia, locust trees and amorpha grow the miscanthus, stipa and pennisetum…These grasses (also called Poaceae) are an extremely cosmopolitan family of plants. They are to be found on every continent, including Antarctica, from equatorial regions to the polar circles and from the coast to the tops of mountains. And so the Grassland Garden has become the kingdom of the African animals, where giraffes mingle with Grant’s zebras, Arabian oryx, ostriches and blesbok.
The lands of the South and the Garden of exuberance
Here the scenery is of the Australian bush type, where plants with wide, jagged leaves are on view, as well as fine grasses and eucalyptus trees. Visitors arrive in the land of Nono the penguin and his buddies the African penguins. He invites us to meet his “pals” the Bennett’s wallabies, coatis and prairie dogs.