Couple who gave up jobs to run wildlife park end up £350,000 in debt, as they admit 'we didn't have any idea what we were doing'

A novice zoo keeper couple who gave up their jobs to run wildlife park in Wales have ended up hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt after the death of two lynxes, as they admit “we didn’t have any idea what we were doing”.

Dean, 50, and Tracy, 47, Tweedy relocated 200 miles from Kent with their three young children and left careers as a street artist and psychotherapist to run Borth Wild Animal Kingdom near Aberystwyth in 2017.

But, after just 15 months the couple reportedly owe creditors around £350,000 after the zoo was temporarily closed and threatened with a ban on keeping lions and leopards as the couple were blamed for the death of two lynxes.

The couple had planned to use the zoo as a sanctuary for animals and to provide therapy sessions for adults, and the zoo was featured in a three part report on BBC’s The One Show.

The couple had already amassed 40 pets at their previous home in Kent and were originally looking for a petting zoo before seeing the then named Borth Animalarium was up for sale last year for £625,000.

"I qualified as a psychotherapist and we wanted a small petting farm to do animal and people therapy,” Mrs Tweedy told The Cambrian News.

Along with six zoo keepers, the pair run the zoo with the help of their three youngest children Paige, Sarah and Sophie. "We didn't have much of an idea what we were doing but everything I don't know I research," she said.

The couple’s dream went awry though when eighteen-month old lynx Lillith was shot dead by council marksmen after escaping from her enclosure by jumping over an electric fence last October.

The escape sparked a 12-day search and the animal was eventually shot at caravan park over fears that she could attack children. A week later a second adult lynx was accidentally strangled by staff at the zoo after becoming twisted in a catch-pole a keeper was using to control the animal.

The site was closed down by the local council, but later allowed to re-open on the condition that it recruited additional expert staff or face losing its licence to keep "dangerous animals". These included male lion, Zulu, lioness, Wilma, the zoo's leopard Raja and its royal python, Gogo.

The couple are now facing moves from one of their creditors to wind up the zoo. Mrs Tweedy told the Daily Telegraph: “We owe £7,000 for a coffee machine. The other figure that has been quoted actually includes our mortgage and sums owed to the directors from the company, and obviously that is not something that we’d recalling. It all makes it look 100 worse than it actually is.”

“The good news is this summer has been busy, our customers are happy and business is picking up.”

A High Court hearing earlier this month gave the couple a reprieve as the case was adjourned until 19 September to allow them to come up with a payment plan.

Mrs Tweedy said that she hoped to be able to set up a plan to pay off the coffee machine debt. “ “Hopefully over the next few months we can really turn this around,” she said.