Up close and personal with encounters of creature kind in Sheffield

“She’s quite heavy,” said Phil Geering, as Layla the binturong stepped on to the next visitor in line at Sunday’s ‘animal encounters day’ at Mayfield Alpacas Animal Park. A few yards away, film star Oreo the racoon feigned indifference to media attention concerning his forthcoming second appearance in Marvel Films’ Guardians of the Galaxy franchise by nibbling an apple, in his personal high chair.

An ‘animal encounters’ day is about getting up close and personal with cute furry – and scaly – animals, said Andy Jonas from Mayfield Alpacas. “You learn about exotic species by physically interacting with them. You say to people: ‘Do you want to hold it?’ and they say ‘Yes’ straight away. It’s human nature, and you find that an encounter like that will instil a passion for education about animals and conservation.”

Andy and partner Keeley took over the animal park at Mayfield 18 months ago, while founder Elaine Sharp now concentrates on her alpaca breeding programme. “We want the animal park to provide contact and interaction with animals, and to become an educational conservation centre,” said Andy.

The couple are now in the long process of attempting to gain a zoo licence. “Sheffield has never had a zoo before,” said Andy. “This would not be a zoo for lions and tigers, but for wonderful animals you might never have heard of before.”

A member of Sheffield Wildlife Trust, the Mayfield centre is also setting up conservation, breeding and release programmes for British wildlife, said Andy, and has been working with students and scientists from Sheffield, Liverpool and Cambridge Universities.

There’s already a harvest mouse breeding programme, and work with the RSPB on swift and swallow conservation should follow soon. A long-term aim is to set up facilities so visitors can watch local badger setts at dawn and dusk.

“This is one of the greenest cities in Britain, but there are still children at local schools who have never ventured out here, and know very little about local wildlife,” said Andy. “We’ve had lots of students coming here who say it all started for them when, as a young child, they had an encounter with an animal.”

Joining Andy and his team on Sunday were North Derbyshire animal encounter company Oreo and Friends, who run educational school sessions, and take unusual creatures to visit the elderly or people with terminal illnesses. “Some people are too ill to visit a zoo, so we take the zoo to them,” said Sallie Bent. The company have to be inspected and licensed so their 15 staff can take representatives of over 30 animal species on visits around the UK.

One such occasion was a mysterious call to Shepperton film studios in 2014 where, on arrival, Oreo the racoon was auditioned by James Gunn, director of Guardians of the Galaxy.

“Oreo jumped all over him,” said Sallie. The Derbyshire-based mammal got the part as model for over 200 animators to turn into the film’s lead role of Rocket Racoon. “Oreo thoroughly enjoyed it. He was filmed on the red carpet with the director, and they even got him a suite in Leicester Square, although I don’t think they realised what a racoon could do to a hotel suite. He enjoyed the complimentary fruit bowl.”

Like Mayfield, Oreo and Friends see themselves primarily as an educational service to promote a love of wildlife, said Sallie. Tonka the armadillo, Layla the binturong and Buttercup the Burmese python took the job seriously as they scampered and slithered around youngsters to prime them for a later career in rainforest conservation.

n Visit www.mayfieldanimalpark.co.uk for details.