The Dhole and Cheetah enclosures in the drive-through safari are part of a larger heathland Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), which the park is restoring.

[4][5] The park was opened by founder Jimmy Chipperfield on 17 April 1973 and hosted a few former circus animals.

It was also the first park or zoo in Europe to successfully breed white lion cubs and has made efforts to conserve the species.

The centre focuses on researching lions and rhinoceroses and carrying capacity of the reserves, which hold many rare animals.

The centre has three full-time researchers[6] who work closely with Save the Rhino and the University of Cape Town.

The African Plain is home to the southern white rhino, common eland, ellipsen waterbuck, African forest buffalo, red lechwe, Burchell's zebra, Grevy's zebra, giraffe and Ankole cattle.

Eurasian Reserve is home to Javan banteng, nilgai and Père David's deer.

Encounter animals include ferrets, lesser hedgehog tenrecs and long-tailed chinchillas.

Their enclosure includes a pool with a semi-submerged beach, sculptures, penguin house and public viewing areas.

A specially designed walkthrough enclosure includes eco-heating to maintain a temperature of 18 °C.

Creepy Crawlies is the park's insect house and contains a small range of animals such as tarantulas, Goliath birdeater spiders, leafcutter ants, locusts, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and scorpions.

The park's reptile house was formerly named after the famous herpetologist Mark O'Shea, who occasionally performed during the reptile-encounter events.

Reptiles in this exhibit include the alligator snapping turtle, American alligator, amethystine python, beaded lizard, black rat snake, Borneo short-tailed python, Cuban crocodile, Eastern diamondback rattlesnake, Egyptian cobra, frill-necked lizard, green anaconda, green and black poison dart frog, green tree python, Jamaican boa, king cobra, malagasy giant hognose snake, Nile crocodile, red-eyed crocodile skink, red-eyed treefrog, red-tailed green ratsnake, reticulated python, Saharan horned viper and western diamondback rattlesnake.

Some of the animals include Asian arowana, Bermuda blue angelfish, chocolate chip star, clownfish, common carp, emperor angelfish, gold-spotted spinefoot, honeycomb moray, long-spine porcupinefish, orangespine, unicornfish, orbicular batfish, pangas catfish, queen coris, red-bellied pacu, red-bellied piranha, Red Sea sailfin tang, redtail catfish, redtoothed triggerfish, reef stonefish, Siberian sturgeon, small-spotted catshark, snowflake moray, spotted sailfin suckermouth catfish, spotted unicornfish, tambaqui, Vlamingii tang, white-spotted puffer and zebra moray.