Visited Belfast Zoo yesterday (14/07/17) and I've ...

Visited Belfast Zoo yesterday (14/07/17) and I've never been so disheartened. It is over priced for the state of the place. It's run down, the glass of enclosures and dirty, most of the enclosures there are no animals in them and it is badly marked out (no footprints for example to follow on ground). The main thing that really got to me the most and my 9 year old nephew was the state of the poor animals and their small boring dirty enclosures. There are loads of animals that are displaying comfort mechanisms and bored/erratic behaviour! The poor lion looked under sized and underweight and also in a small enclosure that you can see and watch the poor guy pacing up and down the same muddy spot. He is one of many doing these same behaviours pacing around or just sleeping. Most animals don't have enough space it's just so sad to watch beautiful animals of our world in that state. The birds enclosures also too small and in a state, also the smaller monkeys (empires,cottontop tamerins etc) in the same situation. Zoos are suppose to be conservations here to protect our species of animals plants etc from being endangered and having breeding programmes in place to put these beautiful creatures back into the Wild where they belong but there doesn't seem to be much of this going on in Belfast Zoo either. I would advise everyone to save their money and go to Dublin Zoo where the animals have a far better life and enclosures and space to themselves. With breeding programmes to help our animal kingdom. Needless to say I wont be back obviously but I felt strongly to write up my review. Hopefully things will change or this place just be shut down.