User:rorynoonanDate:17/03/2013Time:16:02:39Edition:16/03/2013Satsatecho160313Page:1Color:

S e r v i n g C o r k f o r 1 2 0 y e a r s

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EDITION NO. 34,861SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2013 RRP: e1.50

16.03.13

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Panda plansfor Fota park

By ALAN HEALY

80,000 set toenjoy Patrick’sDay festivities

THE three-day St Patrick’s DayFestival got underway in Cork citytoday — featuring street per-formers from all over the world,mime artists, magicians and en-tertainers.

More than 80,000 people are ex-pected to attend the festival,which includes tomorrow’s StPatrick’s Day parade — which willbe watched online by 30,000 peopleliving abroad.

Children in Mahon held theirannual parade yesterday whenmore than 200 tiny tots, aged from18 months to five years old,marched through the localitydressed in green.

Organiser Eileen Wedel said:“We’ve been running this for 10years and the children reallyenjoy themselves. They madetheir costumes themselves in alocal school.”

● See page 2 and 3 for more. Enjoying the Mahon St Patrick’s Day parade on Avenue De Rennes yesterday were Kyle Kearney and RhysO’Leary, both from Mahon. Picture: Jim Coughlan

FOTA Wildlife Park haslodged plans for amassive 27-acre expan-sion that will clear theway for the arrival oftigers, lions, rhinos andrare giant pandas.

The extension will add ap-proximately 40% to Fota’soverall size and make it one ofthe largest wildlife parks inEurope.

It is hoped that the firstphase of the €6m project, in-volving the addition of Sumat-ran tigers, will be completeand open to the public by nextsummer.

The wildlife park has alsoconfirmed plans to secure two

rare giant pandas and will beusing Cork’s twinning rela-tionship with Shanghai tostrengthen its case.

In the meantime, it isplanned to introduce anumber of new Asian animalsto Fota, many of which are en-dangered.

As well as Sumatran tigers,it is planned to introduce Asi-atic tigers, rhinoceroses, Ja-panese cranes, Takin ante-lopes and Asian bears, if theplans to bring pandas to Corkare unsuccessful.

The Asian sanctuary site isbeing developed behind thepenguin and bison enclosures.

It will include 13 new build-ings for animals, two newlakes, a second entrance build-ing, a small souvenir shop anda viewing building.

Stephen Ryan of Fota Wild-life Park said it had justlodged plans for the excitingproject.

“Once complete the additionof the Asian sanctuary willmake Fota one of the biggestwildlife parks in Europe.

“It will add about a mile ofextra footpaths,” added MrRyan.

Given the increase in size,Fota is considering introdu-cing a two-day pass for visit-ors to give them time to com-pletely cover the park.

● 27-acre expansion to make park one of Europe’s largest

e40m Spike Island project sunk - see page 4