Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park
Conservation Education & Engagement Plan 2026-2028
Askham Bryan Wildlife Park’s conservation education strategy:
A focus on inspiring visitors, students, and local communities to understand, value, and actively protect wildlife and habitats. Through engaging keeper talks, interactive workshops, guided animal experiences, school programmes and Wildlife Acadamies,
We communicate key conservation issues such as habitat loss, biodiversity decline, climate change, pollution, and sustainable living.
Our educational content is tailored to different age groups and learning needs, using the park’s animals and habitats as real-world examples to make conservation relevant and memorable.
We also encourage practical action by providing visitors with simple ways to support wildlife at home and in their communities, while partnerships with schools, conservation organisations and stakeholders can extend the park’s impact beyond its grounds.
Success is measured through visitor feedback, participation levels, learning outcomes, and evidence of changes in conservation knowledge and behaviour.
Mission Statement
“At Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park, our mission is to conserve and protect species and habitats, support meaningful conservation action, and provide exceptional educational and training opportunities that inspire the next generation of conservation professionals”
Aim 1 – Educate
Provide informal learning opportunities for visitors through engaging keeper talks, informative signage and creative educational trails
Aim 2 – Teach
Inspire the next generation through formal learning from compelling educational workshops both at the Wildlife Park and in outreach opportunities
Aim 3 – Spotlight
Raise the awareness and support conservation efforts for endangered & Rare Breed Native Species, including Glutinous Snails, Tansy Beetles & Medicinal Leech
Aim 4 – Contribute
Encourage ways public can support conservation and sustainability in their everyday lives
Aim 1 – Educate
Provide informal learning oppertunties for visitors through engaging keeper talks, informative signae and creative educational trails
Student Designed Developed Signage
Allow our students to create Zoo licence standard signage for our Animals and for Conservation project support by the Wildlife Park.
Our aim is for these to then be available for visiting public, school visits and home education days. Therefore we would like to make sure we are adding 3-5 new signs every year for this development.
Keeper Talks
Create and encourage keepers to offer a diverse range of educational keeper talks at the Wildlife Park.
We will make sure to have a minimum of 4 talks per day (open to public) with a diverse range of 2-3 different taxonomy available.
Keepers will receive regular training and feedback. We would implement that they record the number of visitors engaged with per talk, by using hand tally counter. This can help us know how many people we’re reaching.
Educational Trails
Trails will be available for visiting public, school visits and home educators.
The trails will be creatve educatioanl games that allow the participant to go through the Wildlife Parking, using student designed signage, to answer questions and riddles.
The trails will have a foxus on KS1-2 curriculm such as Classification, Predator/Prey, Habitats & Adaptations, Rainforests. Through the participant handing these back in we can record what they have learned and enjoyed at the Wildlife Park.rk.
Aim 2 – Teach
Inspire the next generation through formal learning from compelling educational workshops both at the Wildlife Park and in outreach opportunities
Education Workshops
Through 45min interactive workshops aimed for key stage 1-2 we aim to give them curriculum relevant experience in the following subjects;
- Habitats and Adaptations
- Classification
- All the -Vores
- Rainforests
This is included in a self-guided tour around the wildlife park, with the option of Wildlife Park Trails – relevent to the subject of the Workshop. Teachers can give feedback for the visit, workshop and from this we will review yearly to make sure we’re reaching the correct target.
Education Visits
We have averaged 1,706 school children visiting the Wildlife Park over the last 5 years, with the last 2 being over 2,000. From that we have had over 40% of those schools returning within a 2 year cycle.
When teachers have asked if the workshops met the curriculm, they answered 100% ‘yes’. Some adding – “Yes”, “Science-Habitats and how the animals adapt. Carnivore, herbivores and omnivores.”
Teacher feedback for evaluating Educational workshops out of 10 scored 9.49 with over 70% selecting 10/10.
Over the next 2 years we aim to continue growth and would target our average school children attendance to be 1,900 and to achieve over 80% for workshops being 10/10 from teachers.
Wildlife Academy
Through our Holiday Clubs the ‘Wildlife Academy’ we’re able to reach audiences and teach direct skills related to animal care and husbandry, amongst developing social skills and overcoming fears. These give children an insight into what its like to work with animals as a protentional career.
The Wildlife Academy runs through the Holidays (Easter, May Half Term and Summer) and allows for up to 10 Children per group. Its split into Wildlife Warriors (WW) (7-10yrs) & Exotic Explorers (EE)(11-14yrs).
Participants help prepare food, create enrichment, clean out enclosures, practice handling techniques and design zoo enclosures. We have had successful number of participants over the last x3 years with an average of 45 participants for the WW (7-10yrs) and 41 participants for the EE (11-14yrs).
This Years Wildlife Academy participation had a 26% increase in the WW & a 20% increase in the EE. This has shown a steady growth and we hope to offer more dates in the following years. We aim to have a 30% (WW) & 25% (EE) increase in participation over the next two years.
We will also in this time track down the progression of participants from the WW to the EE sessions.
What would they rate the Wildlife Academy? 1=never do it again 5=cant wait to come back
4.85
Average Rating
Aim 3 – Spotlight
Raise the awareness and support conservation efforts for endangered & Rare Breed Native Species, including Glutinous Snails, Tansy Beetles & Medicinal Leech
Rare Breed Heritage & Conservation Farm
Keep up to date signage with the RBST Watchlist species, through signage around the farm but also through our Easter Events. This will be a themed 2 week event focused on the rare breeds at the Heritage Conservation Farm.
We will have linked keeper talks and Trails for this event, raising the awareness of declining species and the benefits of Rare Breed Species.
We aim to make sure that we have an increase of 20% attendance each year during this week from visitors and educational trails competition and keeper talks participation raise by 50% each year.
Endangered Native Invertebrates
Through dedicated weekends in the spring we will target raising awareness of the Endangered Native Invertebrates. This will include Tansy Beetles, Glutinous Snails and Medicinal Leech.
All will have relevent charaties to help raise money for such as Life Forms Art, that support the Wild Popuilation of Glutinous Snails and our own Tansy Arc Site based at the Wildlife Park Pond.
The target will be for visitors to take part in interactive sessions such as planing tansy plants and taking part in populations surveys. Our Target would be that suring these weekends we have over 10% of visitors getting involved with either activities. We’d aim to grow this by 50% for the following years.
Aim 4 – Contribute
Encourage ways public can support conservation and sustainabilty in their everyday lives
Sustainability Trails
Through using the educational trails when children visit the Wildlife Park, we wanted to use the opportunity to pass on Sustainability messages with our themed areas and recycling messages around the Wildlife Park.
This is to be an included part of trails and our education, to raise the awareness of what people can do in their own lives for Wildlife and the Environment.
Shop Ocelot
The Wildlife Park’s ‘Shop Ocelot’ supports 100% sustainability, with all the products being made out of recycled materials. The shop has grown in the last 5 years with the brands and organisations we use. The target would be to continute to increase the diversity of sustainable companies from the 7 current companies and increase this to 10 diffeerent companies by the End of the 2028 plan.
We hope that by this we are increasing the diversity of sustainable resources we represent, hopefully meeting different visitors needs and intrests.
School Feedback Visit to Wildlife Park
Survey Results 2025-26
Who Visited the Wildlife Park
- 45 – Schools
- 2,149 – School Children Visited
- 24 – Returning Schools
- 22 – York Schools
What did they learn ?
- 62 Workshops
- 24% – Minibeasts
- 22.5% – Habitats & Adaptations
- 19% – Classification
- 13% – All the -vores
- 21.5%- Custom/Rainforest/Self-Guided
Overall, How would you rate todays visit to the Wildlife Park?
9.33
Average Rating
Overall, How would you rate the quality of the
workshop?
9.49
Average Rating
School Visit Comments
‘The workshop was at the end of our animals science topic. It was a great way for the children to recap their knowledge and to correct some misconceptions around reptiles and amphibians.’
‘Lots of interesting facts about the insects etc behind the scenes. Seeing them up close meant they got a better understanding of their behaviour and what they look like.’
“Consolidated learning on how animals are classified and the features to look for.’
‘The workshop solidified the children’s knowledge on classification in an engaging fun way. It allowed them to discuss where we would find different animals and give examples for each classification.’
‘Very informative workshop leaders and students. The labelling system around the site allowed the children to read and absorb so much knowledge.’
‘It helped consolidate our learning at school – and was useful for me to watch and assess their understanding.’
Wildlife Academy Feedback
Survey Results 2025-26
Do they feel they learnt anything on the
Wildlife Academy?
What do they remember learning?
“Yes lots! 100 species of armadillo but only 1 can turn into a ball. Lemurs have elbow scent glands and have a 2 year old’s intelligence. Skills: cleaning up poo, making friends, how to feed cockroaches. Shuffle feet to not stand on meerkats. Animal counts..”
“Armadillo’s dig and cockroaches eat fruit. Knows how to check if fish are in saltwater or fresh water, using the pipettes and a ‘fancy thing’ to put water on!”
“He has learnt to not stroke otters or have them as pets as they would make a really bad pet”
Was this their first Wildlife Academy or were they returning?
