Bailiwick pupils offered visits to Accidental Zoo

Over a fortnight, 10 visits are being made to the Castel site.

Charity chief executive Charlotte Le Guilcher, who co-founded the zoo with her husband Ryan, said she hoped that the two-week outdoor learning experience, would bring learning alive.

As a registered Guernsey charity, the Accidental Zoo’s main goals are to support the education, health and wellbeing of islanders with opportunities to learn about and reconnect with nature. Starting out as a collection of animals for the family to look after, rapid growth and huge interest saw the birth of the Accidental Zoo as a full charity with Mrs Le Guilcher and her husband quitting their jobs this year to run it full-time. The zoo has continued to grow and is now home to around 250 animals from cows and pigs to emus and various reptiles. Primary school children from Years 4, 5 and 6 from 15 local schools, including St Anne’s in Alderney, Herm School and a Guernsey home school group, were invited to take part in the event. The day’s activities for each visit include a farmyard walk and talk, a reptile encounters talk and nature craft. Across these activities the students learn about the characteristics and care of various farm animals, the adaptations of reptiles and use shed snakeskin mounted on wooden blocks to create print images of snakes to take home.

Two students enjoying the activities on offer were Lee Srodzinsky and Charlotte Mullins, both nine, from Hautes Capelles school.

Charlotte said that she loved the pigs and piglets because they were very cute, while Lee’s favourite animals were the emus. ‘They looked like dinosaurs,’ he said.

Describing what she hoped the children would gain from the visits, Mrs Le Guilcher said: ‘What I most want the children to take away from the day’s activities is inspiration and love for animals and the outdoors that will stay with them throughout life.’