Getting behind the scenes at a wildlife park is a thrill even for adults. For children it is a mixture of awe and excitement. Summer camps at Fota in Co Cork allow youngsters to get into close quarters with the animals. In the incubation house, the lamping process enables them to see right inside the eggs. Children are allowed to feed the giraffes, or meet the rain-forest parrots not normally on public view, or the equally retiring Spurthighed Tortoise. They can even get eyeball-to-eyeball with a giraffe.
Devised by education officer Lynda McSweeney, junior camps cater for children aged four to 12 in groups segregated according to age and further subdivided to provide a rota of activities over five days. Parents will warm to the exhaustion potential of a programme spread over 70 acres of parkland, islands, streams and woods, but children are not daunted by it either, largely because it is so full of interest and wonderment and also because it is designed to suit the different capacities of the various age groups. Wildlife wardens explain the importance of animal husbandry; the youngsters see the different meals being made up according to the needs of each species and how the park keepers reproduce the natural ingredients which these animals and birds would find in the wild.
"The important thing they all have to realise - and this includes both parents and teachers - is that the animals here are not pets," says Lynda McSweeney, whose enthusiasm for her job is infectious. Educational courses designed for Leaving Certificate biology, art and genetics modules are part of the Fota agenda, and this year a summer camp for older children has also been slotted in to a schedule which includes "Safari Days".
McSweeney has to keep on reminding people that Fota is not a zoo. Its purpose is the protection and breeding of a selection of endangered species, and therefore there are no attempts to habituate the animals to human contact. Quite the reverse, in fact. A posse of ring-tailed lemurs bent on their own business can remind children that humankind is the visitor here, not the animal. The highly independent zebras, the Indian Blackbuck, the ostriches which are truly astonishing at close quarters (a somewhat uncomfortable distance, in fact), the cheetahs which prowl or laze in the leafy shadows of their enclosures, the Eastern Grey Kangaroo grazing among the trees, the dining habits of the white pelican and the undulant stride of the giraffe, all contribute to an experience which is aimed at generating an awareness among children of how fragile and how wonderful animal life really is.
"We try to get across that we're the visitors," says McSweeney. "We do allow close contact for the children - with equally close attention to handling hygiene! - but our business here is breeding and animal welfare. We try to engender respect for all animals, not just these vulnerable ones. Children are receptive, they're open to learning and they even accept that down here just watching is a form of learning too. And judging by the number that come back we're making some kind of impact. Parents seem to think that it's good value for money; even if it does seem a bit more expensive than other summer camps, we have [people with] Ph.Ds giving the instruction here, and there's a general acceptance that this is a unique place."
Fota Wildlife Park Summer Camp '98: (4 - 12 years), July 6th 10th, and July 20th 24th, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, £45 per week; (12 14 years), July 27th 31st, £45.
Fota Wildlife Park: 021-812678; Lynda McSweeney, education officer, 021-812736. Fax: 021 812744.
