DUDLEY Zoo and Castle is inviting visitors to ‘Love Your Zoo’ during half-term.

The attraction is joining the annual British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) Love Your Zoo week, running throughout the school holiday from May 27 to June 4, which aims to highlight the conservation, education and research zoos carry out.

Andrea Hales, marketing manager at Dudley Zoo and Castle, said: “We’re looking forward to welcoming half term visitors and getting the chance to showcase how not only are BIAZA zoos vital with regards to the work they carry out, but also how they’re a great day out for all the family too.

“At DZC we’re a totally unique attraction, with more than 1,600 animals living around the ruins of an 11th century Dudley Castle, who share the site with the world’s largest single collection of Modernist Tecton structures and not forgetting the country’s only vintage chairlift, we have lots to make us stand out.”

Throughout the week, visitors to the zoo will have chance to win an animal adoption by taking part in a trail around the 40-acre Castle Hill site to meet some of the zoo’s most well-known animals, as well as learning more about the animal projects the attraction supports around the globe.

A packed programme of talks each day will also highlight the importance of zoos and conservation and daily activities in the Discovery Centre will focus on DZC’s past 86 years, its present and future.

As well as meerkats, Bornean orangutan babies, lions, tigers, giraffes and penguins, visitors will also be able to spot the zoo’s newest arrival, Carko, the 11 month-old male red panda, who recently arrived in Dudley from Sweden as part of a European Endangered Species Breeding Programme (EEP), as well as the zoo’s six-week old baby black lemur twins, Charles and Camila.