Weymouth Sealife Park celebrating 30th anniversary year with special events (From Dorset Echo)

Weymouth Sealife Park celebrating 30th anniversary year with special events

2:00pm Tuesday 19th March 2013 in News

IT’S been a Weymouth institution for three decades.

Staff at the Weymouth Sealife Park will be celebrating their 30th anniversary this year with a special programme of events during the Easter holidays.

The park, which was established in 1983, was the second sealife park to be built in this country, after the first was created in Oban, Scotland.

There are now 55 such parks across the world, which are run by the Merlin Entertainments Group.

At the Weymouth park there will be birthday cake, balloons and games galore at between March 29 and April 14.

CBeebies TV lamb Timmy will be making an appearance and there will be a Memorabilia Room for people to take a look at the bygone era of the park, which is sited at Lodmoor Country Park.

General manager Craig Dunkerley, pictured, said: “We’ve worked a lot on modernising the park.

“The great thing about the park is we get parents here who visited as children and now they’re bringing their own kids.

“There are many defining moments that have shaped the park throughout its history such as the first penguin chick being born in 2005, the rescue and release of Muddy the dolphin in 1993 and the Florida turtles arriving in 2010.”

The Sealife Park’s other attractions are the Sealife Tower and the Sealife Express train which travels between the two attractions.

Throughout this week the Echo is going to be running a series of articles showcasing the park’s history, present and future.

We’ll be looking at a day in the life of a senior aquarist, hearing incredible stories about the park’s creatures and finding out what has kept animal curator Robin James at the park for 24 years.