WWT London supports Love Your Zoo/Aquarium Week celebrations
Zoos and aquariums across the country celebrated Love Your Zoo/Aquarium Week 2026 [25–29 May], highlighting the vital role they play in conservation, education and connecting people with nature.
Love Your Zoo and Love Your Aquarium Week is an annual event organised by BIAZA (the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums) in recognition of the outstanding work of its members such as WWT London Wetland Centre.
This year’s campaign highlighted the theme ‘In Our Nature’, celebrating how zoos and aquariums connect people with the natural world while protecting species both in the UK and globally.
Last year alone, BIAZA zoos and aquariums:
- Welcomed 31.4 million visitors
- Undertook 745,000 formal education visits, on top of countless educational days out
- Supported 1,048 conservation projects – from saving Britain’s tiny glutinous snail from extinction to reducing elephant-human conflict internationally
- Spent £34.2 million on conservation
- Undertook 1,670 research projects
- Provided jobs to more than 7,000 people
Dr Jo Judge, CEO of BIAZA, said:
“Protecting, restoring and connecting our natural world is at the heart of what good zoos and aquariums do. We hope everyone will come together, enjoy a fantastic day out with family and understand a bit more about how zoos and aquariums are working to create a brighter future for both people and nature.”
Whether it is breeding programmes for endangered species, world-leading scientific research or inspirational education work connecting people and nature, the work of zoos and aquariums has never been more relevant.
Recent examples of the conservation impact delivered by the zoo and aquarium sector include:
- The reintroduction to the wild of the critically endangered African antelope known as the Mountain Bongo from European zoos, coordinated over 11 years by Chester Zoo
- A world-first fully mapped genome of the endangered Barbary macaque, based on research at Trentham Monkey Forest
- The release of 4,000 dark bordered beauty moth eggs in the Cairngorms National Park by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland to establish a new population of the endangered species
- The release of 182 threatened white-clawed crayfish in Yorkshire from a hatchery at Flamingo Land Resort
- Galway Atlantaquaria’s Explore Your Shore programme, connecting local communities to the ocean and protecting coastlines through citizen science
Alexia Hollinshead, General Manager at WWT London Wetland Centre, said:
“Love Your Zoo and Aquarium Week is a great opportunity to recognise the important work zoos and aquariums do to protect wildlife, support conservation and help people connect with nature.”
With the support of visitors, zoos like WWT London are able to continue this important work for the benefit of wildlife both here in the UK and around the world.
