travel,  zoos and aquariums

Parc des Felins and Terre des Singes (Feline park and Monkey land)

June 28, 2019 /

On our first full day in the north of France, we decided to visit the Parc des Felins and the Terre des Singes in Lumigny-Nesle-Ormeaux. These two animal parks are only 10 minutes from my friend’s house and we bought the pass for both and took advantage of the discount. This was by far our most expensive outing but it still was not too bad at a little over 100 euros for the whole family. We first stopped by the village’s boulangerie (bread bakery) for fresh baguettes for our picnic lunch.

I was very impressed with the size of the enclosures at the Feline Park and how natural they were with grasses, bushes and trees. Sometimes the animals were hard to see because they used their environment to their advantage. This zoological park boasts 300 animals which includes 26 species of felines. While we did love seeing the black panther catch a live fish from his pond,  seeing the white tigers sleep and other animals roam their land, our favorite part of that park was the lemur island.

To reach the island, you cross a small bridge and gate and there is a short path that you stay on to observe the lemurs.

Some of the lemurs ignored us while others were curious and crossed the path, and came close to us. We had never been in such a place so we loved it. The lemurs were not aggresive and we stayed in this area for a while enjoying the experience.

This lemur was very curious and tried to crawl under the stroller. As you can see my youngest did not enjoy the experience: he does not like live animals up close!

We spent a couple of hours walking through the park and had a picnic before heading to the monkey park which is just a few minutes away.

There is a parrot and parakeet exhibit where you walk through and birds fly around you but the highlight of this park is where you walk through the macaque forest just as the lemur island. There are 4 groups of macaques and 3 of these groups have  joined together. We listened to a presentation explaining the macaque hierachy and where the one group who didn’t join the others came from. This group is composed of rescued animals that had been sold on the black market and mistreated or abandonned. The presentation was very interesting and informative. It was also feeding time which ended being disturbed by one macaque not following the proper hierachy and a call to the group was made by the “big boss”. The macaques rallied and disappeared after some screeching before all was calm again.

We were advised not to get too close to the animals. One lady approached an elderly macaque and must have stared at her to make her feel threatened. The primate reacted by screeching and becoming agitated. The zoologist quickly ran to her to divert the animal’s attention. After observing this interaction we made sure not to look into the eyes of the macaques. We felt safe but knew that these are wild animals!

We really loved the experience and enjoyed observing the animals’ freedom in their habitat. We learned that the climate there was very similar to their home climate because their natural habitat include cold and heat in the mountains.

I definitely recommend both of these parks to people who visit the area.This is really not too far from Disney Paris, being northeast of Paris. We have always loved visiting zoos and try to make a point to visit one when we visit a new place. People have many opinions about zoos. While some people do not like zoos and seeing animals in captivity, in many instances zoos are places where endangered species or nearly extinct species can be saved  by creating programs to reproduce and keep them from extinction. By learning about animals, we can also help them in their natural habitats and by educating the humans too! I definitely like the zoos where the animals are in a natural habitat like these two parks and where I know the animals have been rescued from human maltreatment.

Hope you enjoyed this little adventure in animal land!

A bientôt!

Please take a minute to subscribe to the blog to receive an email letting you know when a new post goes live. I usually post Monday, Wednesday and Friday but sometimes have a bonus post during the week. You can also follow me on instagram @chezmireillefashiontravelmom.com

I link up with these fabulous blog link ups!

 

16 Comments