The 23rd of January marks a whole three years since Cumbria Zoo Company took full control of running Safari Zoo.

And it’s not the only important birthdays we have celebrated this past seven days….

We celebrated Southern White Rhinoceros Huubke’s 24th birthday with a cake fit for the King that he is - a personalised giant hay cake which was just right for smashing.

Andean Bear Mona, not to be outdone by the attention our Huubke was getting, turned the big 21 on Friday.

Mona’s celebrations were certainly enthusiastic as she was given her very own Christmas Tree to play with.

Visitors and staff were moved to see Mona’s reaction as she pushed, rolled and “threw down” on the tree

In other news, this weekend marks our Australia fundraiser in aid of the Animal Rescue Collective.

There will be free admission to Safari Zoo to everyone who donates a minimum of £5 to our Australia fundraiser.

You can buy either on the door or via our online fundraising page shop.cumbriazoo.co.uk.

Safari Zoo pledge to give 100 per cent of your donation to The Rescue Collective and Animal Rescue Collective.

A question people often ask is how do you choose who to support? It’s hard because you want to be sure your donation is genuinely doing something.

Usually, as in the case of Orphan Rhino Arthur, Bishal the Red Panda Guardian and the Cameroon Kordofans, we would take months of due diligence researching the work, reading field reports and asking questions.

In this case, they don’t have months for us to sit here and decide.

Whilst we are lucky enough to house many amazing animals, we are still a relatively young zoo.

There are unarguably huge zoos doing amazing things and raising hundreds of thousands (if not millions) for conservation initiatives around the world.

That does not mean the little people or those without a big name can’t do anything, it doesn’t mean your efforts are futile.

So we choose organisations who are not well known to us, almost 9,500 thousand miles away.

It took a lot of trawling through reports and social media, speaking with people who live in Australia.

These guys are going out there daily, providing essential water and food, rescuing the injured and giving the healthy a chance at life.