Kids on Safari

Eleven-year-old Helena Artus from Flintshire is wearing wellies and a high-visibility vest. She is enjoying a beach safari, at Anglesey Sea Zoo at Brynsiencyn. Children’s groups don’t get to poke and prod some poor creature in a tank; they wander over to the shore of the Menai Strait, and with the help of an expert marine biologist, find them in their natural home.

We've done away with the touch pools you find in other aquaria", says Zoo owner Dylan Evans. "Instead we offer a true hands-on experience. It proves the point that there’s life everywhere.

All the animals in the Sea Zoo, the largest aquarium in Wales, are native to Britain, many taken there by local fishermen from around the coast of Anglesey.

All the creatures are re-homed in painstakingly recreated habitats, like the shipwreck with its conger eels, the Big Fish Forest containing 50,000 gallons of water and enormous sea bass, rays and other oceanic species, and of course, the shark pool, which you can walk right across.

At  feeding time the pool becomes “a boiling, writhing mound of sharks” according to aquarium manager Karen Tuson.

Karen, however, spends most of her time with less ferocious creatures. Short Snouted Seahorses, to be precise. Anglesey Sea Zoo is part of an international breeding program to keep these weird and fascinating creatures from extinction. “It’s pioneering work,” says Karen, “visitors are enthralled and amazed and want to learn more and more.”