Animal adventure as £1m menagerie opens

A £1 million menagerie of monkeys, meerkats and micro pigs has been created in Wolverhampton.

After running an exotic pet shop for more than a decade, brothers Jimmy and Ben Wicks have sunk their life savings into creating Wickid Animal Adventure in Dunstall.

The brothers from Wednesfield have spent the past year – and £500,000 each – transforming a patch of wasteland at the side of their shop in Gorsebrook Road into the animal park, which also has wallabies, genettes, skunks and birds of prey.

The menagerie also has an exotic pet shop licence and will officially open to the public at 10.30am on Sunday, with admission costing £1.50.

The site includes enclosures, a refreshment area and the brothers are working on a nocturnal animal house and pirate-themed aquarium.

Jimmy, aged 39, has run Wickid Pets for 11 years and takes care of the wildlife, while Ben, 41, works on the enclosures and models. Father-of-two Ben said: "We bought the shop off the old landlord last May and have sunk absolutely everything into this.

"The land was a complete dump at first and we have been working around the clock to bring it up to scratch.

"Jimmy has been running the shop for years and is very respected in the field of exotic animals. I think he has always had a project like this in mind, ever since he was five years old and first went to Chester Zoo. There is nothing he doesn't know about animals."

The animals have come from zoos, breeders, animal sanctuaries and Jimmy's contacts from the pet shop world. There has also been a baby boom in the run-up to the grand opening, with coatamundies, skunks, genettes and snakes all being born in the past six weeks.

"I've hand-reared most of these animals," Jimmy said. "A lot of people buy exotic pets but don't know what to feed them or how to take care of them.

"But we will be giving people advice as well as letting them handle the animals. My top priority is the welfare of the animals."

The brothers said they were also hoping to host school visits in the future.

The animal park also features rare goeldi monkeys, ostriches, otters, raccoons and squirrels. The animals in the menagerie are not for sale but people can buy unusual creatures such as tarantalas and lizards from the pet shop.