WHAT'S the collective noun for a group of wallabies? You'll love this... it's a mob.
On a hot, sleepy morning at Askham Bryan College's new wildlife & conservation park, the resident wallabies don't look much like a mob. There's not a hint of the unruly teenager or Al Capone henchman about them. Instead, they're lying sprawled asleep in the shade, looking very content and, dare we say it, middle aged.
One of them has carved out a bit of a rep for himself, however. Back in 2014 Wesley the wallaby sparked a police chase and the closure of York's outer ring road when he was spotted hopping along the grass verge beside the A1237 between Haxby and Strensall.
Fifteen police officers, firefighters with heat sensors and a vet armed with a tranquiliser gun were needed before Wesley could be captured. He was offered a home at Askham Bryan College - and here he has been for the best part of three years, now very much part of the wildlife park's small 'mob' of Bennett's wallabies.
The college has been training students in the techniques of animal management and wildlife conservation for years. But it was only last month that the new wildlife and conservation park was officially opened. 

York Press:
We stoop to conquer: a distinctly un-mobsterish wallaby at Askham Bryan

Best of all, it is now officially open to members of the public too - on weekends and during school holidays at least. It has in effect become York's very own small zoo.
And a wonderful little zoo it is. Many of the animal enclosures are laid out in the college's beautiful arboretum, which is worth visiting itself. Here, as you stroll around, you'll come across a variety of animals from different habitats around the world. Not the classic 'big beasts' admittedly - there are no lions or tigers, elephants, giraffes or rhinos here. But animals which, in their own individual ways, are every bit as interesting.
You enter through the college's new Animal Management Centre, which was rightly up for a York Design Award last year. And among the first animals you'll see are the meerkats.
They're undoubtedly among the stars of the show. A group of meerkats is also called a mob - and these little animals live up to the name more than the wallabies.

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Raffish: a meerkat on the lookout

There's something raffish and a bit disreputable about the way they stand up straight on their hind legs, propped on their tails, and peer about as if on the lookout for danger (which is exactly what they're doing, in fact). They hail originally from the Kalahari desert - and the two meerkat compounds at Askham Bryan have been made up to look like desert scrubland. The burrows everywhere have been dug by the meerkats themselves, says Caroline Howard, the wildlife park's manager.
Next door to the meerkats is the tortoise compound, where popular 'meet the tortoise' events are held. Then, moving further into the park, you come to the lemur enclosure.
Lemurs are primates which hail originally from Madagascar, off the eastern coast of Africa, and which look like a cross between a cat and a squirrel. Askham Bryan has a pair of black lemurs - Khagani and Florence - and, sharing their enclosure with them, a collared lemur named Fred.

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Domiant: Fred the collared lemur, with Askham Bryan College chief executive Catherine Dixon

There's no doubt who's the boss of this little group. "Fred is the dominant lemur," says Caroline. You can tell that just from his body language - he looks like the old regular at your local who always sits at the best table in the bar and keeps a watchful eye on everyone who comes in...
The lemurs' next-door neighbours are the raccoons. They look like bandits, with their face masks and striped tails - and they behave a bit like them, too. They were once popular as pets in this country, and caused a problem because they kept escaping and setting up home in the wild.

"They are little escape artists," says Caroline. "They can crawl, hanging upside down, across the mesh at the top of the enclosure." So good are they at escapology that they actually became what's known as an invasive species. "They're a big problem in the UK," Caroline says. The advice is: don't be tempted to keep a raccoon as a pet. It's a wild animal - and it will escape...

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Escape artist: Mac the raccoon

Among the strangest animals in the wildlife park are the Patagonian Mara. They have a large enclosure deep in the park laid out to grass - they're a grassland species from South America.

When you look at them, your eyes find it hard to accept what you are seeing. They look at once oddly familiar, and yet utterly strange. "People ask if they're rabbits, or hares," Caroline says.

And they do have something of the alert look of the hare about them. But they're far too big, their legs are the wrong shape, and their ears are too short. So what are they? "The world's fourth largest species of rodent," says Caroline. So related to hares and rabbits after all...

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Strange-looking: the Patagonian mara

Elsewhere as you wander around the park you'll come across a monkey house containing common marmosets and white lipped tamarin, both species of New World monkey; a newly created 'wetlands zone' populated by newts, frogs and toads; a tansy beetle ark, safely above the level of the York floodwaters; and an aviary thronging with parrots, cockatiels and budgerigars.

The collective noun for a group of parrots is a 'pandemonium' - and you can hear why, when you stand and peer in at the many brightly-coloured specimens gazing out at you, or sidling sideways foot-over-foot along a branch. The air really is filled with a pandemonium of screeches and trills and harsh, throaty squawks. It sounds like a scene from Jurassic Park.

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A common marmoset in the monkey house

When you return to the animal management centre from the wildlife park, you still have one remaining treat in store: the 'wildlife of the world' corridor, a kind of combination indoor reptile house, insect house and aquarium. Here, terrapins dive with balletic grace; a brightly-coloured Regal Tang (Pixar's Dory) hides behind a coral outcrop; and, in a separate glass-panelled enclosure, a huge Goliath tarantula lurks beneath a tree root, the sinister movement of its limbs just visible in the darkness.
There's also the wonderfully-named Australian water dragon (which isn't quite as big and fierce as it sounds) and the king of snakes, the boa constrictor. This is kept in a much larger glass-walled compound than it would have in many another zoo. "They should really be able to stretch out to their full body length," says Caroline. "It helps their digestion."

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Wildlife park manager Caroline Howard with an Australian water dragon

That's the thing about this lovely little zoo. None of the animals - especially out in the park - seem crowded. They've all got room to roam, and hide, and burrow, and screech. And there's plenty of room in the beautiful parkland for human visitors to enjoy themselves too.

  • The Askham Bryan College Wildlife And Conservation Park is open to the public at from 10am-5pm at weekends and during school holidays. Tickets, which must be booked in advance, cost £6.95 (adults), £5.95 (concessions), £4.95 (children aged 3-15) and £20 (family ticket for two adults and two children). 

The park also offers regular 'learn about' sessions, in which staff and animal management students at the college will teach you about meerkats, wallabies, skunks, tansy beetles and much more. Or, for £100 per person, you can become a 'Keeper for the Day', during which you'll learn about what it takes to be a zoo keeper, and will be able to help clean, feed and care for the animals. Children who want to be a Keeper for the Day must be aged over 8, and those under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
To find out more, visit www.abcwildlifepark.co.uk/

GOING PUBLIC WAS AN OBVIOUS STEP
The main aim of the Askham Bryan College Wildlife and Conservation Park is to teach the college's students about every aspect of animal management, behaviour and conservation. The college offers a range of courses at level 2, level 3, foundation degree and honours degree level.
But a big part of learning to be an animal handler or zoo keeper involves interacting with members of the public, says Caroline Howard, the wildlife park's manager. So opening the park up to the public was an obvious step.
Members of the public seem to have no problem with knowing that many of the staff they deal with when they visit the park are students 'cutting their teeth' in the industry, says Caroline.
Recent reviews on TripAdvisor bear that out.
"We went to the wildlife park today with our two and four year old. ...There are loads of animals and the enclosures are well sized and very clean with lots for the animals to do," wrote one satisfied dad. "My two children loved it and we ended up staying for the whole day. The staff were all brilliant and very knowledgeable."
"The park is small inside but well worth a visit," added a local mum who brought her ten-year-old for a birthday visit. "There is an interesting walk-through section with reptiles, fish and small animals and outside a meerkat enclosure. Venturing further outside ...the walk through the gorgeous trees to see the small monkey enclosure, wallabies and pond with tadpole viewing area was really lovely on a sunny spring day. The best part was our friendly informative host Jake!"